Pentagon blows deadline to pry Iraq off US military aid
The Donald Trump administration will continue to foot the bill for rebuilding Iraq’s defense institutions amid rising Iranian influence.
The Donald Trump administration has missed a congressional target to put Baghdad in charge of paying for US security cooperation amid persistent insecurity and rising Iranian influence.
The administration had planned to have Iraq start paying for the US-funded Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq in October 2017. According to a Pentagon report sent to Congress in March and reviewed by Al-Monitor, however, drawn-out combat operations against the Islamic State (IS) have left Baghdad with “little bandwidth” to help pay for the office out of the Iraqi treasury and US assistance programs.
