General Babikir Zebari, Chief of Staff of the Iraqi army, was among military chiefs who met in Washington on October 14 to discuss strategy against Islamic State. This is the transcript of an interview he gave in the US capital to Rudaw’s Namo Abdullah: Rudaw: Can you tell us what your meeting with US President Barack Obama and the military chiefs of about 20 other countries was about? Babakir Zebari: We met with President Obama and the leaders of 22 coalition countries at the Pentagon. After dinner we had discussion into the late hours of the night. The official meeting was the next day. When half-way through, President Obama joined us for about an hour. The goal of the gathering was how to eradicate ISIS in the region; how to deal with it in Syria and how to do it in Iraq. The priority is of course Iraq where there is a government, an army, and leadership. It is possible to know who you will talk to and plan with. Then if ISIS is defeated in Iraq, it will make the task easier in Syria. But despite that, they will not ignore Syria. They [the coalition forces] will target ISIS’s oil refineries and other sources of revenue in order to degrade their economy. And they will also target to kill them based on information they might collect from inside or from their own satellites and listening devices. Another side of the discussions was about the division of tasks among the coalition and the freezing of their [ISIS] sources of income, training the Free Syrian Army [FSA] and which country is willing to train and arm them so that they can create an effective leadership and fight the Syrian regime. Four countries expressed willingness to receive the FSA and they were Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and Jordan. On the topic of the war against ISIS, all the attended countries agreed unanimously that ISIS must be eradicated. They were all enthusiastic and agreed to work under the US leadership. And they all agreed that Iraq was the priority. Rudaw: The coalition has now grown to more than 60 countries. But not only is ISIS not defeated, it is on the contrary advancing and gaining more territory in Anbar and other parts of Iraq? Babakir Zebari: It is true. In some areas they have advanced but in many areas in central Iraq they have been pushed back. Amerli, Injana, Khalis, Muqdadaya, the Baghdad-Kirkuk road, the Baghdad-Tikrit road have all been taken back from them. ISIS’s initial might has been weakened since the coalition forces joined the fight earnestly. ISIS doesn't have the same strong strategy of the coalition forces. When ISIS took over Mosul, Salahaddin and other areas, they came in control of vast areas and for that they needed manpower, so they called for volunteers. People joined the group for the money because ISIS had oil to sell for revenue. But now that source of revenue is gone and volunteers won't want to die. Therefore, I believe ISIS is facing trouble. ISIS also used to attack a specific area employing 80-100 well-armed vehicles but they can no longer use that tactic. Rudaw: But a few days ago ISIS militants came very close to the Baghdad airport. They were only a few miles away and they were stopped by American apache helicopters? Babakir Zebari: That is not true at all. They haven't even come close to Abu Ghraib which is very far from Baghdad. That is just rumour and not true. We even told the Americans that sometimes their information is not accurate. Rudaw: The Obama administration announced the strategy of degrading and destroying ISIS. How possible is it to fulfil that strategy with air strikes alone? Babakir Zebari: That is not possible. Unless you have ground troops there that land isn't yours. Therefore they rely on the Iraqi army and Peshmerga forces. They intend to strengthen and train both the Peshmerga and the Iraqi army for this task. They are not willing to send their ground troops and Iraq does not want it. Rudaw: In 2011, right before the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, you said in a media interview that the Iraqi army needed until 2020 to be ready to defend Iraq. How long do you think it would take Iraq to have such an army? Babakir Zebari: It was just a military plan we had drawn with NATO. It took us one year to draw such a long-term strategy for training the Iraqi army, officers, opening military academies and what needed to be done. It was an immaculate plan approved by the National Assembly and the cabinet. But unfortunately the Americans pulled out and the Iraqi government wasn't able to pursue the plan. Rudaw: The question many people still ask is that how come ISIS, this group that the even the US was ignoring because it was too small to pose any serious threat, was able to take Iraq’s second largest city in the matter of a few hours? Babakir Zebari: There were many causes for that disaster. There had been earlier groundwork for the attack on Mosul. Now we have no time to talk about them all. But it had taken from the time the Americans pulled out of Iraq until it happened. Rudaw: Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani said that he had informed Iraqi Prime minister [Nouri al-Maliki] about the ISIS threat to Mosul. And even Mahdi Gharawi, one of your own generals, told Reuters that he had warned of the ISIS advance to Mosul but that no one had listened to him? Babakir Zebari: President Barzani first spoke to me. When a few neighbourhoods of Mosul were taken, he told me to tell the prime minister to put aside political differences and prevent the attack on Mosul. He said that the fall of Mosul would be catastrophic for Iraq and all of us. He offered to send some Peshmerga brigades to assist the Iraqi army in the city because the army didn't have any reservists there. Then I passed on this message to the defence minister who welcomed the offer and said it would be great help for us. The minister spoke with the prime minister but he rejected the offer. Then I called Mahdi Gharawi twice and told him that he was in trouble and that he should ask the prime minister for Peshmerga assistance because the Peshmerga were nearby. But he said, ‘No need for that, we can hold them [ISIS] back’ and I said, ‘No you can’t.’ Yes, President Barzani warned and offered assistance unambiguously but it was rejected. They [Baghdad] even said later on that the attack on Mosul was a plot. But who would want such a thing? Who would want ISIS to take Mosul, kill and disperse people and take their homes and property. What interests would the Kurdistan Region have in having ISIS as its neighbour? It makes no sense to prefer ISIS to the Iraqi government. But I think that is what the [military] leaders around Maliki used to tell him. Rudaw: There are reports in the American media saying that the US military advisors in Iraq are hesitant about training the Iraqi army because they doubt their backgrounds and fear that the army has been infiltrated by terrorists and other elements, who could pose a threat to the Americans themselves? Babakir Zebari: That is not true. Members of the Iraqi army are good people and they have been vetted.
