US Troop Deployment to Boost Iraqi Efficiency Might Portend Major Escalation

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The United States is sending two more companies of soldiers to Iraq to help with the offensive to liberate the city of Mosul, a US military spokesman said on Monday. The 200 to 300 additional troops are from the 82nd Airborne Division's second combat brigade, and their mission is expected to be a temporary one, according to media reports.

“I'm sure the US military doesn’t want to get too deeply entangled in the battles in Mosul,” US historian and political commentator Helena Cobban said. “Of course, one major consideration for them is not to suffer too many casualties.”

Cobban said she believed a major purpose of the new deployment was to use the troops to try and improve the combat efficiency of Iraq’s own combat forces.

Cobban also said she did not expect the force’s commanders to expose it to the risk of significant casualties.

“The reinforcements from the 82nd Airborne may of course get involved in some of the remaining combat, but I'm sure their commanders don't want them to stay too long or to be the thin end of any endlessly expanding wedge,” she explained.

The new US reinforcements were also likely to be used to improve air-ground coordination to reduce civilian casualties in US tactical strikes in support of Iraqi ground forces, Cobban added.

“I imagine the goals of the CENTCOM [US Central Command] commanders include trying to ensure better coordination with, and supervision of, the Iraqi… officers who have been calling in air strikes, to prevent… any repeat of the large-scale killing the US Air Force committed over the weekend,” Cobban said.

Former Defense Department analyst Chuck Spinney told Sputnik the new deployment, although small, could be part of a much larger US strategic escalation across the Middle East.

“The Iraqi escalation is part of a much larger, and to my mind frightening, picture that can be sniffed out from statements made in recent congressional hearing from senior military officers and by the white house and other news reports,” Spinney suggested.

Spinney noted a Washington post report that the administration was considering a deeper involvement in Yemen.

“It looks to me that the Iraqi escalation is part of a larger and it seems to me a largely unfocused escalation that could lead to increased tensions both with the Islamic World and Russia for years to come,” he added.

Spinney also pointed to recent reports that the Trump administration was loosening the rules for drone strikes.