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Secret U.S. Plan to Aid Iraq Ended Because of Mutual Distrust

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Worthy News)-- President Barack Obama authorized a secret plan to aid Iraq by sharing intelligence on Sunni jihadist's camps. However, only a handful of U.S. specialists were tasked to the operation, and it provided limited information to Iraq, due to U.S. concerns that the Iraqi government would share sensitive information to its Shiite counterpart, Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.

President Barack Obama authorized a secret plan late last year to aid Iraqi troops in their fight against Sunni extremists by sharing intelligence on the militants' desert encampments, but devoted only a handful of U.S. specialists to the task.

So few aircraft were dedicated to the program, which also faced restrictions by the Iraqis, that U.S. surveillance flights usually took place just once a month, said current and former U.S. officials briefed on the program.

Instead of providing Iraqis with real-time drone feeds and intercepted communications from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, the militant group that has overrun parts of Iraq, U.S. intelligence specialists typically gave their Iraqi counterparts limited photographic images, reflecting U.S. concerns that more sensitive data would end up in Iranian hands, these officials said. -- Source

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Plan to aid Iraq army against militants was understaffed, marked by distrust, report claims - Fox News
A secret plan to aid the Iraqi army in its fight against Al Qaeda-aligned Sunni Muslim militants was authorized by President Barack Obama late last year, but was handicapped by a lack of resources and mistrust over Iran's influence on the government of Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to a published report.