June 12, 2015
Marine military advisers deployed to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq are ready to carry out their mission to train local forces to fight the Islamic State group. But there’s one problem: There are no Iraqi troops to train.
A U.S. defense official told The Hill on June 8 there haven’t been new rotations of Iraqi troops to train at the base in Anbar province — one of five sites used by coalition forces to advise local troops — for up to a month and a half.
Marine officials operating there confirmed the assessment, attributing the lull in training to the base’s remote location and the challenge of scheduling advising sessions through the Iraqi defense ministry.