DOHUK, Iraq — American warplanes struck Sunni militant positions in northern Iraq on Friday, the Pentagon and Kurdish officials said. The action returned United States forces to a direct combat role in a country it withdrew from in 2011.
Two F-18 fighters dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery target near Erbil, according to a statement by Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary. Militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were using the artillery to shell Kurdish forces defending Erbil, “near U.S. personnel,” Admiral Kirby said.
The strike followed President Obama’s announcement Thursday night that he had authorized limited airstrikes to protect American citizens in Erbil and Baghdad, and, if necessary, to break the siege of tens of thousand of refugees who are stranded on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq.
Obama on Iraqi Airstrikes and Airdrops President Obama spoke about actions taken by his administration in Iraq, including airdrops of humanitarian supplies and the authorization of airstrikes against ISIS forces.
AUGUST 7, 2014 WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday announced he had authorized limited airstrikes against Islamic militants in Iraq, scrambling to avert the fall of the Kurdish capital, Erbil, and returning the United States to a significant battlefield role in Iraq for the first time since the last American soldier left the country at the end of 2011.
Speaking at the White House on Thursday night, Mr. Obama also said that American military aircraft had dropped food and water to tens of thousands of Iraqis trapped on a barren mountain range in northwestern Iraq, having fled the militants, from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, who threaten them with what Mr. Obama called “genocide.”
“Earlier this week, one Iraqi cried that there is no one coming to help,” Mr. Obama said in a somber statement delivered from the State Dining Room. “Well, today America is coming to help.”
Obama, With Reluctance, Returns to Action in Iraq By PETER BAKER AUGUST 7, 2014 WASHINGTON — In sending warplanes back into the skies over Iraq, President Obama on Thursday night found himself exactly where he did not want to be. Hoping to end the war in Iraq, Mr. Obama became the fourth president in a row to order military action in that graveyard of American ambition.
The mandate he gave to the armed forces was more limited than that of his predecessors, focused mainly on dropping food and water. But he also authorized targeted airstrikes “if necessary” against Islamic radicals advancing on the Kurdish capital of Erbil and others threatening to wipe out thousands of non-Muslims stranded on a remote mountaintop.
As he explained himself to a national television audience, Mr. Obama made a point of reassuring a war-weary public that the president who pulled American forces out of Iraq at the end of 2011 had no intention of fighting another full-scale war there. Yet his presence in the State Dining Room testified to the bleak reality that the tide of events in that ancient land has defied his predictions and aspirations before.
The US has been bombing Iraq for 24 years now. Amazing!
This has to be the first time a Nobel Peace Prize winner has conducted so many peace air strikes in so many countries. Look at Libya after his bombings, it is the model of peace now.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
The smoke plumes looked like flowers and rainbows.
I thought I seen a unicorn in there to, and what did Obama say before this
Quoted Text
“I will not allow the United States to be dragged into another war in Iraq,” President Barack Obama said, just hours before sending F/A-18 Hornets to drop bombs in Iraq.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
I'm pretty sure Obama authorized the training and arming of ISIS in Syria. The US once again fighting an enemy they created.
Thank You Barry Obama - Nobel Peace Prize Winner.
Yes he did he trained and armed ISIS in Safari Jordan in 2012 to help overthrow the Syrian government and president Bashar Al-Assad. In doing so thousands of civilians died in Obamas handling and arming of these fighters.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
Box thinks that Bush is still calling the shots, the Nobel Peace Prize winner would never do anything like that.
LMAO! Now Shadow speaks for me!
G Worst Bush is long gone, busy painting a bowl of apples, but his legacy dies on in Iraq.
Somehow, Saddam Hussein isn't the monster that he once was when we invaded Iraq.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. John Kenneth Galbraith
You and cicero over analyze . There are bad guys. People that do bad things. Need a spanking.
Bad guys that we funded, armed, and trained, it seems to be a never ending problem with us.
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
Logged
