Mission creep?

The more military personnel sent over there, the greater the chance one of our own will become involved directly in hostilities. Then what will the boy wonder do?

"ABOARD MILITARY AIRCRAFT, OVER THE BERING SEA — The military has sent 130 additional advisers to northern Iraq to plan for the evacuation of refugees under siege by Islamist militants, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced Tuesday.

"This is not a combat boots on the ground kind of operation," Hagel told Marines at Camp Pendleton in California.

The Marines and special operations forces have been sent to the city of Irbil in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq to assess the humanitarian crisis in the Sinjar Mountains and ways to end it, said a senior Defense Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly about the mission.

USA TODAY earlier reported that the 130 advisers had been sent to Iraq before Hagel's announcement.

There were about 300 U.S. military advisers already in Iraq, as well as other troops there to protect the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world...ation/13970545/

Zitat

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"This is not a combat boots on the ground kind of operation," Hagel told Marines at Camp Pendleton in California.

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That's rich coming from a Viet Nam vet. Didn't McNamara use the same terminology early on?

This also reminds me of Vietnam in the period after Kennedy had Diem assassinated.

Secretary Chuck Hagel said the administration will consider future requests from Iraq’s new government, once it is formed, for security assistance beyond that now being given...Once an inclusive government which the U.S. has been pushing for is in place in Baghdad"