Prior to a question-and-answer session with Camp Pendleton Marines, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Tuesday afternoon said the Pentagon is sending 130 more military advisers to northern Iraq to help local forces in their escalating fight against Islamic militants.
Sec.Def. Chuck Hagel, goes one on one at Camp Pendleton pic.twitter.com/siQscTX69g
— Bob Lawrence (@10NewsLawrence) August 12, 2014The additional U.S. advisers are not combat troops, and President Barack Obama has said repeatedly he will not send ground forces back into Iraq.
The 130 additional U.S. advisers were going to the city of Irbil, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity before Hagel made the announcement while speaking with Marines at Camp Pendleton.
NPR reports Hagel said President Obama authorized the deployment of the "new assessment-team members" on Tuesday.
The extra personnel were sent to "take a closer look and give a more in-depth assessment of where we can continue to help the Iraqis with what they're doing and the threats that they are now dealing with," Hagel said.
The 130 are in addition to 90 U.S. military advisers already in Baghdad and 160 in a pair of operations centers — one in Irbil and one in Baghdad — working with Iraqi security forces.
So the new total of U.S. military advisers is 380. They are in addition to about 455 U.S. security forces and 100 military personnel working in the Office of Security Cooperation in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
Camp Pendleton was the first stop in the United States after a week-long around the world trip that had stops in Germany, India and Australia.
Hagel recently was in Australia with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, urging Iraq's new leaders to work quickly to form an inclusive government.
In Germany, Hagel visited the U.S. European Command for updates on the situation in the Ukraine and meeting with NATO officials.
Bilateral talks about Afghanistan and the Asian Pacific were the top of Hagel’s agenda while in India. Hagel also helped prepare the team coordinating the first visit to America for India's new prime minister.
KPBS reporter Matt Bowler contributed to this report.
