Jared Kushner Meets With Iraqi Leader on Future of ISIS Battle
By TIM ARANGOAPRIL 3, 2017
ERBIL, Iraq — After arriving in Baghdad on Monday afternoon, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, met with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to discuss the fight against the Islamic State
and whether the United States would leave troops in Iraq afterward, according to a spokesman for the prime minister.
Mr. Kushner was also expected to meet with officials from the United States-led military coalition
and Iraq’s minister of defense, according to an Iraqi military spokesman.
Mr. Kushner, a senior adviser to the president, traveled to Iraq along with Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, as part of the general’s planned trip to discuss the battle against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL.
With administration officials having signaled a desire to take a tougher stance on Iran, which like Iraq is majority Shiite and whose power inside Iraq is paramount, Iraqi officials have worried
that their country could again become a place for the two foreign powers to settle their differences.
Mr. Trump has given mixed signals on this subject, at once vowing to end costly military missions abroad while,
as a candidate, criticizing Mr. Obama for withdrawing all American troops from Iraq at the end of 2011.