President Barack Obama announced he will send up to 300 military advisers to Iraq as government forces battled Sunni rebels for control of the country's biggest refinery.
Speaking after a meeting with his national security team, Mr Obama said he was prepared to take “targeted” military action later but insisted that US troops would not return to combat in Iraq.
Mr Obama also delivered a stern message to prime minister Nuri al-Maliki on the need to take urgent steps to heal Iraq’s sectarian rift which an al Qaeda splinter group leading the Sunni revolt has exploited.
“We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq,” Mr Obama told reporters.
The president, who withdrew US troops from Iraq at the end of 2011, said the United States would increase support for Iraq’s security forces but stopped short of acceding to Baghdad’s request for the immediate use of air power against insurgents who have overrun northern Iraq.
The contingent of up to 300 military advisers will be made up of special forces and will staff joint operations centers for intelligence sharing and planning, US officials said.
Leading US lawmakers have called for Mr Maliki to step down, and Obama aides have also made clear their frustration with him.
Some US officials believe there is a need for new Iraqi leadership but are mindful that Washington may not have enough clout to influence the situation, a former senior administration official said.
Although Mr Obama did not join calls for Mr Maliki to go, he declined to express confidence in the prime minister.
Secretary of state John Kerry will travel to Europe and the Middle East soon for talks aimed at stabilising the region.
Refinery becomes battleground
As Mr Obama announced his most significant response to the Iraqi crisis, the sprawling Baiji refinery, 200 km north of the capital near Tikrit, was transformed into a battlefield.
Troops loyal to the Shia-led government held off insurgents from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis), also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, and its allies who had stormed the perimeter a day earlier, threatening national energy supplies.
A government spokesman said at one point yesterday that Iraqi forces were in “complete control.” But a witness in Baiji said fighting was continuing and most of the refinery remained under rebel control.
Mr Obama said the US “will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action if we conclude the situation on the ground requires it”. But he insisted that any US military response would not be in support of one Iraqi sect over another.
Mr Maliki’s Shia alliance won the most votes in April parliamentary elections, and US officials said the Obama administration was pressing Iraqi authorities to accelerate the process of forging a new, broad-based governing coalition involving Sunnis and Kurds.
A senior member of Maliki’s State of Law list suggested immediate US military action was no longer necessary because defenses in the capital, Baghdad, hade been strengthened and the new advisers would make it easier to bomb in the future if needed.
Isis’s advance
Isis, which considers Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority as heretics in league with neighbouring Shi'ite Iran, has led a Sunni charge across northern Iraq after capturing the major city of Mosul last week as government forces collapsed.
The group’s advance has only been slowed by a regrouped military, Shia militias and other volunteers.
The government announced yesterday that those who joined up to fight in “hot areas” would be paid about $150 a week.
Isis, whose leader broke with al Qaeda after accusing the global jihadist movement of being too cautious, has now secured cities and territory in Iraq and Syria, in effect putting it well on the path to establishing its own well-armed enclave.
The US secretary of state, Kerry, played down the extent of possible cooperation with Iran, the main Shia power, which backs Mr Maliki, saying Washington wanted communication on Iraq with its old enemy to avoid “mistakes” but would not work closely with Tehran.
Mr Obama challenged Iran to play a constructive role in Iraq and not come in “solely as an armed force on behalf of the Shia.”
Reuters