DefenceTalkIraqi forces on Tuesday recaptured from the Islamic State group the first three districts of militant bastion Tal Afar as the Pentagon chief visited Baghdad in a show of support. The United Nations said thousands of civilians had fled Tal Afar in the two days since the start of the broad offensive backed by the […]https://www.defencetalk.com/iraqi-forces-retake-three-districts-of-is-bastion-70343/

DefenceTalkThe United States is prepared to deploy attack helicopters in support of an Iraqi offensive to retake the Islamic State-held city of Ramadi, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Wednesday. Carter told a US Senate hearing that the Iraqi army was beginning to move on the city in Iraq’s Anbar province, which fell to IS […]https://www.defencetalk.com/us-ready-to-deploy-attack-helicopters-to-retake-iraqi-city-66030/

DefenceTalkA recent report from the Congressional Research Service, which examines the cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other global “War on Terror” operations since 9/11, calculates a cumulative (fiscal year 2001 through fiscal year 2014) nominal price tag of $1.6 trillion. Adding the war funding for fiscal year 2015 that was passed in December pushes the […]https://www.defencetalk.com/wars-in-the-middle-east-have-cost-taxpayers-almost-1-7-trillion-62208/

DefenceTalkA further delay to a report into Britain’s role in the Iraq war sparked angry claims of a cover-up on Wednesday, illustrating the lingering controversy over a conflict in which 179 British soldiers died. Six years after the inquiry started and 12 years on from the beginning of the war itself, its chairman John Chilcot […]https://www.defencetalk.com/british-iraq-war-report-delay-sparks-cover-up-claims-62080/

DefenceTalkViolence in Iraq could delay the delivery of American F-16 fighter jets to the Baghdad government after contractors had to be evacuated from a key air base, the Pentagon said Monday. Although the United States is moving to expedite the delivery of weapons and ammunition to the Iraqi government as it battles Sunni extremists, volatile […]https://www.defencetalk.com/unrest-in-iraq-could-delay-delivery-of-us-f-16s-60000/

DefenceTalkPresident Barack Obama said Monday he had sent up to 200 US extra troops equipped for combat, with surveillance gear and helicopters, to protect the US Embassy in Baghdad. Together with a 275-strong embassy protection force already sent and another 300 US special forces charged with advising the Iraqi army, the deployment will mean nearly […]https://www.defencetalk.com/obama-to-deploy-200-extra-troops-to-iraq-59994/

DefenceTalkThe top manager in Iraq of the notorious private security firm Blackwater threatened to kill a US State Department investigator for probing the company’s performance, The New York Times reported Monday. The Times, citing an internal State Department memorandum, said the threat came just weeks before Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 civilians on September […]https://www.defencetalk.com/blackwater-threatened-to-kill-us-official-in-iraq-report-59990/

DefenceTalkBarack Obama returned to Washington on Monday after a brief family break in California to find himself confronted once again by the nightmare from which America thought it had escaped: Iraq. Obama ran for the White House as a young leader who opposed the 2003 US invasion, and then won re-election as the steady hand […]https://www.defencetalk.com/break-over-obama-returns-to-iraq-nightmare-59932/

DefenceTalkAn intensifying revolt in a Sunni Arab province of Iraq sparked by the Shiite-led government’s dispersal of a year-old protest leaves the country at the crossroads between reconciliation and civil war, analysts say. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki must decide in the coming days whether to offer a real share of power to the disenchanted Sunni […]https://www.defencetalk.com/iraq-at-crossroads-between-reconciliation-and-war-analysts-50047/

DefenceTalkPolicymakers and military commanders should use the lessons derived from the final years of U.S. involvement in Iraq to inform critical decisions and timelines required to successfully end large-scale military operations, including the one in Afghanistan, according to a new RAND Corporation study. It took approximately two years to wrap up the long-term, country-wide military […]https://www.defencetalk.com/the-end-of-the-iraq-war-offers-lessons-for-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-49571/