Congress may scrap a provision in an upcoming defense policy bill to send weapons directly to Iraq’s Sunnis and Kurdish peshmerga in their fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a senior House Republican said over the weekend.
Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) expressed concern the provision could undermine the predominantly Shiite government of Iraq, which has been accused by Sunnis and Kurds of unfair and slow distribution of weapons.
“I think there is a way to streamline the process of getting the weapons to both the Sunni tribes and the peshmerga, where it is desperately needed to defeat ISIS, while at the same time not undermining the government of Iraq in Baghdad,” McCaul told The Associated Press on Sunday, after visiting Baghdad and meeting with Iraqi officials.
{mosads}McCaul visited Iraq with seven other lawmakers, according to the AP. A statement by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the House members included Republican Reps. Pete Sessions (Texas), Will Hurd (Texas), Vern Buchanan (Fla.), John Katko (N.Y.), Barry Loudermilk (Ga.), as well as Democratic Reps. Bill Keating (Mass.) and Kathleen Rice (N.Y.).
The May 3 Iraqi statement said al-Abadi “reasserted his stand regarding Iraq’s rejection to the bill of the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services referring that any external support to Iraq should be through the central government to keep Iraq’s sovereignty; as such bills undermine the efforts of fighting Da’esh and leads to polarization in the region.”
The provision is included in the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, which was passed last week by the House Armed Services Committee in a 60-2 vote. It now heads to the House floor this month for a vote.
The provision would require that 25 percent of $715 million in military assistance to Iraq next year go to the Sunnis and Kurds, and require an administration assessment as to whether Iraq is meeting conditions of political inclusion of its ethnic and sectarian minorities.
If the secretaries of Defense and State do not assess that Iraq has achieved those conditions, the Defense secretary would withhold military assistance to Iraq and provide at least 60 percent of all unobligated funds to the Peshmerga and Sunnis.
It would also recognize Kurdistan and the Sunni communities as a state, so they could be directly supplied by weapons.
Kurdish officials have complained since the beginning of the fight against ISIS last summer that, although the peshmerga has spearheaded and borne the brunt of Iraq’s fight against ISIS, it has not received its fair share of weapons from the central government.
There is also growing concern that Sunni tribesmen are not being incorporated into the fight against ISIS, and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi Security Forces will mistreat Sunni-dominated communities if they are responsible for clearing those areas of ISIS.
Al-Abadi also discussed the provision with Vice President Biden during a phone call on Saturday.
A White House readout said Biden “further reaffirmed” that all military assistance “must be coordinated through the Government of Iraq.”
Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — who attacked U.S. forces during the previous Iraq War — had threatened to do so again if the bill is passed, according to the Long War Journal.
“If the time comes and the proposed bill is passed, we will have no choice but to unfreeze the military wing that deals with the American entity so that it may start targeting American interests in Iraq and outside of Iraq when possible,” he said.
“If America persists then it will cease to exist,” he added.
— Updated 5/13/05 at 9:22 a.m.