The much-delayed deployment of South Korea’s brigade to Iraq has gone ahead, the Defense Ministry announced Wednesday in a move that is expected to improve ties with the United States. The unit needs its mandate renewed by the National Assembly, however, to stay beyond December.
South Korea has deployed 2,800 troops and will add 800 once the brigade has expanded its base in Erbil, in northern Iraq, the ministry said. Battalion-sized South Korean forces previously deployed in southern Iraq were absorbed into the brigade. The unit is the third-largest foreign force in the country, after the contingents from the United States and Britain.
Look, we stood firm with South Korea for a little while, roughly over half a century and counting. They had better give us a little more of a time commitment. It’s not like we’re asking their troops to wear orange and patrol barefoot in the Sunni Triangle.