Iraqis no longer trust US in fight against Daesh: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Sa'ad al-Muttalibi, a member of the State of Law Coalition in Baghdad, to discuss the remarks made by former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki saying the US-led coalition has been unbelievably inefficient in fighting the Daesh terrorist group.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Talk to us about the recent comments made by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki putting a big question mark over the operations that the so-called US-led coalition has carried out against Daesh terrorists.

Muttalibi: It has been proven as a matter of fact that the United States and its allies have dragged their feet in every occasion while fighting [against] ISIS (Daesh) and none or very few of Iraqi requests have been met. While Iraqi forces monitor the movement of ISIS caravans of hundred of cars and vehicles and we asked the United States to attack this target or the hundreds of tankers looting Iraqi crude oil into Turkey and we asked the Americans to stop them [by] any means possible and always the Americans for one reason or another would decline the Iraqi request and they sometimes take targets of their own chosen and even sometimes they actually attacked the Popular Mobilization units on the ground  on the pretext that there was no lack of coordination.

So to make it short, the trust between Iraqi forces and the United States is at its minimum at the moment and the States, the Americans and their allies need to improve tremendously their outputs for us to slightly start to believe in their promises and believe in their actions.  

Press TV: Maliki believes that Moscow can help Baghdad by expanding its bombing campaign against the ISIL terrorist group to Iraq much similar to what we have been seeing over the past weeks in Syria. Do you think that Russia can aid Iraq in that regard?

Muttalibi: Well at least if they can strike the joint border between Iraq and Syria and stop the free movement of ISIS between al-Raqqah and Mosul and al-Raqqah and the western provinces of Iraq, that would be a tremendous service to the Iraqi forces because the more we attack ISIS supporters and their troops in the western country, we see hundreds of ISIS fighters pouring over from Raqqah, from Syria into Iraq and when we ask the Americans to strike these targets, as I said, the Americans always refuse.

So if the Russian fighters can expand their attack from within Syria into the border between Iraq and Syria, that would definitely add to our direct capability in combating ISIS and if they do participate in strikes against targets given by the Iraqi forces against ISIS within the territories of Iraq, that again would be a tremendous boost to the Iraqi efforts to combat and to completely expel ISIS from Iraq.

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