President Barack Obama announced on Thursday that he has authorized “targeted airstrikes” to protect U.S. interests in Iraq.
NBC News reports that “[i]n a nationally televised address, Obama said Thursday night that he had long warned the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, not to threaten the strategic city of Erbil. With ISIS fighters nearing Erbil on Thursday, Obama said he had approved ‘targeted strikes against [ISIS] convoys should they approach the city.'”
“We can act responsibly to prevent an act of genocide,” Obama said, adding that he had also authorized targeted airstrikes to help break ISIS’ siege trapping about 40,000 Christians and members of a religious sect called the Yazidi on Mount Sinjar near Mosul.
“Today, America is coming to help,” Obama said — while also stressing that U.S. troops wouldn’t be returning to Iraq.
The U.S. has already been flying B-1 bombers, F-18 attack aircraft and MQ-1 Predators over Iraq airspace on surveillance missions for several weeks and the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier strike group is in the Persian Gulf and could participate should military operations occur.
As NBC reports, the USS Bush carrier strike group “includes four destroyers, at least one cruiser, an amphibious assault ship and a dock landing ship.”
So far, the U.S. has sent about 800 troops to Iraq to advise the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad, and it has increased delivery of Hellfire missiles to the Iraqi military.
You can go here to read the President’s entire statement.
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