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The U.S. military will boost its effort to help Iraqi forces confront Islamic State militants in the coming weeks, deploying 1,500 more troops to the country. (Reuters)

President Obama authorized Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Friday to send up to 1,500 additional U.S. troops to Iraq, roughly doubling the force the United States has built up since June to fight the Islamic State militants who control much of Iraq and Syria.

The announcement of a major increase in the force in Iraq deepens U.S. involvement in a messy regional conflict that officials are warning may last for years. The White House said it would request $5.6billion for the military campaign against the Islamic State, including $1.6billion to train and equip Iraqi troops.

If funding for the plan is approved, the additional U.S. troops will expand a military advisory mission in Iraq that began in the summer and will establish a new effort to train Iraqi forces, Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagons press secretary, told reporters.

The expansion of the U.S. military footprint in Iraq, nearly three years after Obama ended the last American war there, also underscores the severity of the threat U.S. officials see in the Islamic State, a well-armed extremist group that has drawn strength from the conflict in Syria and has used brutal tactics to expand its realm across Iraq and Syria.

In response to that threat, Obama had established a renewed military force in Iraq of 1,400 troops, significantly increasing a security presence that since the 2011 withdrawal had included only a small security assistance office attached to the U.S. Embassy.

Officials said they hoped that lawmakers would approve the funding for the new troop plan in the coming weeks.

U.S. officials said that, under the new plan, U.S. Central Command would establish two additional hubs for U.S. military advisers, who have been working alongside Iraqi officials since the summer as they oversee Iraqi efforts to expel the Islamic State from the country.

One will be in western Anbar province, which has been partly controlled by Islamic State militants for about a year, and the second will be north of Baghdad.

Central Command would also establish training sites for Iraqi forces in several locations in the northern, western and southern parts of the country, including ethnically mixed Diyala province. Since the return of U.S. troops to Iraq in the summer, they had previously been confined mostly to Baghdad and Irbil in the north.

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Obama plans to double U.S. force in Iraq

Rand Paul: We will introduce a bill to repeal Obamacare and try to pass it
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Rand Paul: We will introduce a bill to repeal Obamacare and try to pass it - Video

Rand Paul speaks on behalf of Republicans
The Kentucky Senator says Republicans will end grid lock. There are dozens of bills that are bi-partisan, they will just need Obama #39;s participation.

By: CBS Evening News

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Rand Paul speaks on behalf of Republicans - Video

updated 10:26 AM EST, Fri November 7, 2014

Washington (CNN) -- Sen. Mitch McConnell just put one election behind him that is expected to sweep him into the position of Senate majority leader, but he already knows who he'd back in 2016 if he decides to run: fellow Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul.

"I don't think he's made a final decision on that. But he'll be able to count on me," McConnell said of Paul's presidential prospects in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader published Thursday.

McConnell, who called himself a "big supporter of Rand Paul" said the pair have "developed a very tight relationship."

"And I'm for him," McConnell said. "Whatever he decides to do."

That's despite the fact that other members of McConnell's new majority are considering presidential bids, including Sens. Ted Cruz, Rob Portman and Marco Rubio.

Who got a 2016 boost from midterms?

But McConnell and Paul have become close, with Paul campaigning with McConnell to stave off the Senate minority leader's Democratic challenge from Alison Lundergan Grimes. And the pair spent Election Night together in Kentucky.

McConnell and Paul have come a long way since 2010, when McConnell backed his primary opponent, a mistake he said he wished he could "do over again."

"I've learned my lesson there," McConnell said. "That clearly was a mistake. We all make them, and that's one if I had to do over again I would."

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McConnell: Rand Paul can 'count on me' for 2016

Sen. Rand Paul said a host of unsuccessful Democratic Senate candidates he branded Hillarys losers on Facebook tried to associate themselves with former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and separate themselves from President Obama, when the reality is theres not much daylight between the two.

My point is to make that they all ran to separate themselves from the president, they wanted to be associated as Clinton Democrats, and they all were soundly rejected, the Kentucky Republican said Friday on Fox and Friends. So there is a message here about Hillary Clinton as much as there is a message about the president.

Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who lost to presumptive Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky this year, for example, famously refused to divulge whether or not she voted for President Obama, instead describing herself as a Clinton Democrat.

But Mr. Paul said the only reason President Bill Clinton was able to carry Kentucky was because Ross Perot was on the ballot.

No Clinton has ever carried a majority in Kentucky, so I think theyre fooling themselves in the south, and also the 1990s was a long time ago - it was another era, he said. There arent many conservative Democrats left; the party has become so liberalI dont know, I dont think there is such a Clinton cachet as there once was.

Mrs. Clinton did trounce Mr. Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary in the state, taking almost two-third of the vote.

Nevertheless, Mr. Paul, arguably more than any other potential 2016 GOP presidential hopeful, has worked to ensure Mrs. Clinton, the odds-on favorite for the Democratic nomination if she runs, will not get a pass this time around.

I think in the past, we havent gone after the opposing partys nominee to say who they are and what they represent, and I think she is going to try to say, oh, Im different than President Obama. Hes very unpopular, but I have different policies, he said. Well, she was part of his administration and I really dont know of many, if any, policies they disagree on.

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Rand Paul: 'Clinton Democrats' became 'Hillary's losers' during election landslide