Relations between Washington and Erbil have gotten so tight that the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) security forces are now on Uncle Sam's payroll.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced during a visit to Baghdad on April 18 that the United States would be contributing $415 million to pay the salaries and expenses of peshmerga fighters on the front lines of the fight against the Islamic State (IS). The agreement, formalized in a July Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Washington and Erbil, came just days after Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani visited Washington with hat in hand.
