USA: House Panel Votes to Arm Kurds

[Anthea]

House Panel Votes to Arm Kurds – The ‘One Effective Fighter in This Fight’
By Patrick Goodenough

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has passed legislation authorizing the direct provision of arms to Kurdish fighters battling ISIS in northern Iraq, a move called for by several 2016 presidential candidates but opposed both by the Obama administration and the government in Baghdad.

Introducing the legislation, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) characterized the Kurdish peshmerga fighters as “the sole US allied force operating on the ground against ISIS in Syria and Iraq,"

“For the last year and a half, we’ve had one effective fighter in this fight: It is the 160,000-strong peshmerga force,” he said, noting that some 30 percent of the fighters were women.

“They have proven themselves as the most dedicated and effective force against ISIS in Iraq – not without considerable casualties, by the way, 8,500 killed and wounded on those frontlines,” he added.

Royce said that according to the Department of Defense, many of the peshmerga casualties were the result of the fact the Kurdish fighters are poorly armed and equipped, compared to Iraqi national forces, Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia, and “most crucially here, ISIS itself.”

Link to Full Article:

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/pat ... hter-fight