What good allies we have...

By Fester:

Good allies trust each other.  Good allies tell each other about major operations that are about to go off in shared battlespace.  Good allies don't devote significant national level surveillance assets that are in high demand and limited supply to watching their allies.  The LA Times has more on the relationship between Iraqi and US forces:

the United States is using spy satellites that ordinarily are trained on adversaries to monitor the movements of the American-backed Iraqi army, current and former U.S. officials say.

The stepped-up surveillance reflects breakdowns in trust and coordination between the two forces....
The use of the satellites puts the United States in the unusual position of employing some of its most sophisticated espionage technology to track an allied army that American forces helped create, continue to advise, and often fight alongside.

The satellites are "imaging military installations that the Iraqi army occupies," said a former U.S. military official, who said slides from the images had been used in recent closed briefings at U.S. facilities in the Middle East. "They're imaging training areas that the Iraqi army utilizes. They're imaging roads that Iraqi armored vehicles and large convoys transit."

The US military is saying through its actions that the Iraqis are standing up and capable of conducting their own operations or at least wants to mask those operations from the US until they are started and the Iraqi Army needs to get bailed out with airpower and artillery. And in order to not be suckered into fights the US does not want to fight but are forced to on the basis of freshly tied Gordian knots, the US is using assets that are very expensive in both cash outlays and much more importantly opportunity costs.  A satellite image analyst who is looking at the take of a KH-11 viewing areas south of Najaf can not be looking at images near the Khyber Pass.  Depending on orbital mechanics, some of the satellites may or may not have been pulled off of other missions to observe our allies.

What great allies we have and what great allies we are....

Comments

[Ron Beasley]

I suspect there is even more to it. The Iraqi security forces are made up largely of pro Iranian Shia and at some point will turn on the US troops. In hostilities towards Iran will make it sooner rather than later and the folks at the Pentagon know it.