{"id":241752,"date":"2016-05-05T09:34:46","date_gmt":"2016-05-05T09:34:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/mission-creep-100s-more-british-troops-could-be-sent-to-iraq\/"},"modified":"2016-05-05T15:01:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T15:01:00","slug":"mission-creep-100s-more-british-troops-could-be-sent-to-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/latest-news\/mission-creep-100s-more-british-troops-could-be-sent-to-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission creep? 100s more British troops could be sent to Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.rt.com\/files\/2016.05\/thumbnail\/5729b19fc36188be338b45b2.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        Despite the death of a US Navy SEAL on Tuesday while training Iraqi troops, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon says hundreds more British troops could be sent to the war-torn country to advise local forces.<\/p>\n<div readability=\"100\">\n<p>Fallon made the comments ahead of a meeting of ministers in Stuttgart on Wednesday, where he will discuss a further \u201c<em>package<\/em>\u201d of troops with his US counterpart Ash Carter. The troops are rumored to include engineers and advisers.<\/p>\n<p>The news comes after a US Navy SEAL \u2013 a member of the force equivalent to the UK\u2019s Special Boat Service \u2013 was killed by enemy fire in Kurdish territory.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/32-AMfyLJHQ\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Fallon said Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS\/ISIL) is on the run, with Iraqi forces \u201c<em>retaking territory, hitting its finances and striking its leadership.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Now is the time to build on recent success and we are looking hard at what more we can offer as Iraqi combat operations intensify,<\/em>\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Given the US soldier was reportedly killed between 3 and 5 miles inside friendly Kurdish territory, the potential UK deployment raises a number of questions, including the blurring of combat and advisory roles.<\/p>\n<p>In a paper published Monday, University of Bradford professor Paul Rogers questioned the utility of British special forces, which are already thought to be active in Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n<p>He said despite being \u201c<em>much-hyped in populist non-fiction,<\/em>\u201d accounts of their usefulness involved \u201c<em>gross exaggerations of actual achievements and little coverage of failed operations.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What may be driving their use \u201c<em>at the official level,<\/em>\u201d Rogers argued, is the established government practice of denying their presence in warzones.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>This is a situation that has been maintained by successive governments, though it is particularly intensive at present,<\/em>\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>It would be healthy for a democracy to be able to engage in open debate, and not just in parliament.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Labour Shadow Defence Secretary Emily Thornberry recently weighed in on the issue of democratic accountability.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U5ExQUIEyP0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>She told Politics Home in late April that Tory Prime Minister David Cameron had effectively reneged on a promise made before he was elected to enshrine in law the need to consult parliament on military deployments.<\/p>\n<p>Except for the aerial war over Syria, no vote has been held in parliament on the issue of troop deployments.<\/p>\n<p>Of the blurring of combat roles and advisory roles, Thornberry said: \u201c<em>If the location of a training camp was identified at any point, it would automatically become a terrorist target, even if based in neighboring countries not involved in conflict.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Referring to the spate of deadly insider attacks on UK troops by supposedly loyal Afghan troops, she pointed out: \u201c<em>Even somewhere as well-protected and remotely-located as Camp Bastion was subject to attacks.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/341761-iraq-troops-michael-fallon\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite the death of a US Navy SEAL on Tuesday while training Iraqi troops, UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon says hundreds more British troops could be sent to the war-torn country to advise local forces. Fallon made the comments ahead of a meeting of ministers in Stuttgart on Wednesday, where he will discuss a further [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":241753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-241752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}