Another 1,500 U.S. troops to go to Iraq

The White House has announced plans to send more than 1,000 troops to Iraq supplement the roughly 1,400 already in the country to advise the Iraqi military in its battle against the Islamic State.

The New York Times reports that the plans call for sending another 1,500 soldiers to Iraq, doubling the U.S. troop presence in the country. The announcement marks a major increase in U.S. involvement in Iraq, where the United States is already leading a coalition of allies in airstrikes against IS.

The number of U.S. troops in Iraq is at its highest since Dec. 2011, when the United States formally withdrew the last of the troops sent to the country in 2003 to search for weapons of mass destruction and overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein.

A major focus for the troops sent to Iraq will be the expansion of training for Iraqi soldiers and volunteers who have enlisted to beat back IS, which controls large swathes of the country, including the second city of Mosul.

Reuters reports that the U.S. troops will be sent to train forces of both the Iraqi Army and the Kurdish militia known as the peshmerga. The goal is to train nine brigades of Iraqi forces and three brigades of peshmerga.

In addition to training, he U.S. troops will also provide strategic guidance to the Iraqi military on a macro level, planning assaults, coordinated air support, and helping draw defensive lines.

The Times notes that most of the troops would be deployed to Anbar Province, which has been a center of violence in both the 2003 war and the current crisis involving IS.

Also announced with the new troop deployments was a request to the United States Congress seeking $1.6 billion that will be used to train and equip Iraqi forces, according to the Times.