Iraq operations cost $7.5 million per day, says Pentagon
| WASHINGTON
US military operations in聽Iraq, including airstrikes and surveillance flights, have cost about $560聽million聽since mid-June, the Pentagon said Friday.
Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the average daily cost has been $7.5聽million. He said it began at a much lower rate in June and escalated after the airstrikes in northern聽Iraq聽began this month.
After he spoke, the US Central Command announced four additional airstrikes, bringing the total since they began on Aug. 8 to 110. Central Command said Friday's missions by US fighter and attack aircraft destroyed four armed vehicles and three support vehicles in the vicinity of the Mosul Dam. One armed vehicle was damaged, it said without providing more details.
Asked why US warplanes are still pounding the Mosul Dam area, long after US officials said local Kurdish and Iraqi forces had regained control from the Islamic State forces, Kirby said, "Because ISIL keeps wanting to take it back," using an acronym for the group.
"They keep threatening the dam and the facility. And as long as they pose a threat to that facility, we are going to continue to help Iraqi security forces preserve their ownership of it," he added.
The Pentagon also has security forces in Baghdad and Irbil to protect American personnel and facilities, and teams of US troops are in those two cities to coordinate with Iraqi and Kurdish forces and to assess the strengths and tactics of Islamic State forces.
Kirby said the costs are being paid from the Pentagon's 2014 overseas contingency fund. Top Pentagon officials have said they have adequate funds for the operation through September but that requests to Congress for the next budget year might have to be reconsidered if the聽Iraq聽operations intensify further.
The White House also is considering whether to extend the military campaign to include Islamic State targets inside Syria, but President Barack Obama said Thursday there was no immediate strategy to do that and played down expectations that it would happen immediately.
In a show of support for聽Iraq's聽fledgling government, Vice President Joe Biden called聽Iraq's聽premier-designate, Haider al-Abadi, on Friday and told him that political progress in聽Iraq聽has played a key role in rallying global support for聽Iraq's聽fight against the Islamic State militants. The White House said the two leaders discussed security cooperation between the US and聽Iraq聽as well as the need to quickly form a government inclusive of聽Iraq's聽various sectarian groups.
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Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.
