By Kristina Wong

Kurdish Peshmerga are only receiving a fraction of U.S. military assistance, despite being a key force in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, warned a top Kurdish official on Monday.

Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, the Kurdistan Regional Government's representative to the U.S. said at a Bipartisan Policy Center event that the Peshmerga has done the "lion's share of the fight against ISIS" in Iraq.

However, instead of sending weapons directly to the Peshmerga, the Obama administration is continuing to send them to Baghdad, out of deference to the Iraqi central government.

As a result, Rahman said, the distribution of those weapons to Peshmerga is slow, hampered by "political friction," and unfair.

For example, out of 250 armored military vehicles known as Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, the U.S. delivered to Baghdad in January, only 25 went to the Peshmerga, Rahman said.

"President Obama's Iraq train-and-equip fund, which comes to $1.6 billion, gave us great hope that American weapons would be delivered in early 2015, but since the passage of the law approving the train-and-equip fund, the vast majority of those weapons have not been delivered," she said.

Those weapons include M-4 rifles, M3 anti-tank weapons, body armor and trucks, she said.

"Some of our weapons date back to the Second World War," she said.

Rahman said she appreciated efforts by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Ranking Member Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) who reintroduced legislation to send arms directly to the Kurds two weeks ago before Congress went on recess. The bill is cosponsored by 31 other lawmakers, including eight Democrats.

So far, the Obama administration has preferred to send weapons through Baghdad so as not to undermine the Shia-dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad.

Rahman pushed back against that idea: "Erbil is part of Iraq. It does not undermine Iraq to deliver weapons to where they are needed most urgently," she said.

The Pentagon said so far, the U.S. has provided Iraq with 232 Hellfire missiles in 2015 and 1,572 in 2014, 250 MRAPs, thousands of Kevlar helmets and body armor, and 10,000 M-16 rifles, 10,000 sights, and 100,000 magazines. So far, the U.S.-led coalition has provided more than 4 million pounds of equipment to the Peshmerga, a Pentagon spokeswoman said on Monday.

"We have been committed to supporting the Kurds," the spokeswoman said. However, she said, "Our policy remains that all arms transfers must be coordinated via the sovereign central government of IRaq. This is a legal requirement under current U.S. law."

Rahman said although the U.S. led the way early in coordinating military aid to the Peshmerga "in the early days" of the fight against ISIS, since August, there has been "numerous delays" in the U.S.-led coalition's efforts to train and equip the Peshmerga.

She said they have received small and medium arms, ammunition, and in some circumstances limited quantities of anti-tank weapons, but are still facing shortfalls in more advanced weaponry.

"We are now in our ninth month of fighting ISIS. We continue to have shortfalls of counter-[improvised explosive device] equipment, armored vehicles, anti-armor weapons, and don't forget ISIS captured the latest American weaponry that had been delivered to the Iraqi Army," Rahman said.

Rahman also said that under the current coalition training program for Iraqi forces, only three Peshmerga brigades will be trained, out of a total of 12 brigades.

"We believe that three brigades is simply not enough. We have over 150,000 Peshmerga. We need training for all of them," she said.

"We have not only demonstrated our political will to fight, but we will continue to do so, but we need the United States and the coalition partners to step up the effort, to deliver weapons, and the kinds of weapons we need."

Rahman said time was of the essence. More than 1,000 Kurds have been killed, and more than 5,000 wounded, she said.

"Time is not a luxury that we can afford. Having deliveries delayed in Baghdad only defeats the objective of fighting ISIS quickly," she said.

Former U.S. European Command deputy commander Air Force Gen. Charles Wald (Ret.), who spoke at the event, said "absolutely we should arm them up."

"I think it's immoral that we're giving 25 MRAPs to the Kurdish," he said.

"There are problems running everything through Baghdad," added Kenneth Pollack, former National Security Council director for Persian Gulf affairs, at the event.

"They are a mess. They are having trouble running its own war," he said. "We can't be allowing Baghdad's problems to hamstrung what we're doing with the KRG," he said.

Rahman said a recent meeting between Iraqi Prime Minster Haider al-Abadi and Kurdish President Masoud Barzani "went very well," but that Abadi's responses to Kurdish concerns were "not good enough."

She said a deal in December to share Kurdish oil exports with the central government in exchange for Kurdistan's fair share of government revenue has become more "stable," but that Baghdad still owed the KRG billions of dollars in revenue.

John Hannah, former assistant for national security to Vice President Dick Cheney, said there were larger stakes in helping the pro-Western KRG than just the war against Iraq.

"We ought to be pulling out a lot of the stops," he said.

"I believe the United States should look at Kurdistan as a partner, not just today...but in the future," Rahman said. "We are part of the solution in the Middle East."

The Hill