'No foreign troops needed in Iraq'
Iraq does not need foreign boots on the ground to defeat Takfiri ISIL troops but it needs weapons and a restructuring of its forces, an Iraqi MP tells Press TV.
“We will not need any boots on the ground from any country whether the US or Europe or any neighboring country for that matter because we already in Iraq have 1.5 million men and they are armed,” Mowaffak al-Rubaie told Press TV in an interview.
“What we need is a revamping of our Iraqi army, Iraqi security forces and federal police. We need a restructuring and the West to speed up the delivery of weapons we’ve already paid money for: the F-16; the Apache; the tanks; the Humvees; the Bradleys and so on and so forth,” said the Iraqi lawmaker.
Al-Rubaie noted that the Iraqi government needs to "improve and increase our intelligence capacity.”
The comments come as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey told reporters on Friday he may recommend boots on the ground, but that those forces would not necessarily be American forces. Dempsey said troops would be comprised of Iraqis, Kurds and the so-called moderate Syrian opposition.
Iraqi political parties have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the US-led coalition’s airstrikes against the ISIL Takfiri militants and have called on Washington and its allies to coordinate their air raids with the Baghdad government, saying that the airstrikes do not fit the threats posed by the ISIL terrorists.
ISIL made swift advances in much of northern and western Iraq over the summer, after capturing large swaths of northern Syria.