{"id":462,"date":"2015-01-08T06:35:43","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T06:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=462"},"modified":"2015-01-12T15:04:03","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T15:04:03","slug":"us-expanding-its-military-assistance-to-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/us-expanding-its-military-assistance-to-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"US expanding its \u201cmilitary assistance\u201d to Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The US government is expanding its \u201cmilitary assistance\u201d to Iraq, providing more weapons and training the country\u2019s army to battle the ISIL terrorist group, a former Pentagon official in Washington says.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201dThe United States is probably going to increase its train and equip, which will include providing more security vehicles,\u201d said Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst at the US Department of Defense.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think you\u2019re going to see an increase of assistance from the US to Iraq to try to stem the ISIS advances,\u201d Maloof told <a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstv.com\/Detail\/2015\/01\/08\/392125\/US-increasing-Iraq-military-assistance\" target=\"_blank\">Press TV<\/a> on Wednesday, using another acronym for ISIS.<\/p>\n<p>However, Maloof expressed concern that the US military hardware will end up in the hands of ISIS terrorists and used against Iraqi civilians.<\/p>\n<p>The US embassy announced earlier this week that the Pentagon has donated 250 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) to the Iraqi Army as it battles ISIS.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The number one threat to the Iraqi security forces are roadside bombs and vehicle-borne bombs,&#8221; US Ambassador Stuart Jones said in a statement Tuesday. &#8220;These vehicles will save Iraqi lives and enable Iraqi security forces to win the fight&#8221; against ISIS.<\/p>\n<p>US President Barack Obama has pledged 3,100 American troops to Iraq to \u201ctrain and advise\u201d the Iraqi Army.<\/p>\n<p>Obama and other senior US officials maintain that US troops would not engage in direct combat with ISIS terrorists.<\/p>\n<p>The US-led coalition has conducted more than 900 airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq since August 8 at an average cost of over $8 million a day, according to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US government is expanding its \u201cmilitary assistance\u201d to Iraq, providing more weapons and training the country\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[44,1,125],"tags":[4,14,356,5,7],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east","category-news","category-united-states","tag-iraq","tag-isis","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-u-s"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Military-Hardware.jpg?fit=534%2C269&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-7s","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions\/463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}