President Barack Obama has said the US-led coalition is hitting the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group “harder than ever”, while acknowledging that “this continues to be a difficult fight”.
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The coalition was also targeting Islamic State’s oil tanker trucks, wells and refineries.
“That is why I have asked Secretary Carter to go to the Middle East – he’ll depart right after this press briefing – to work with our coalition partners on securing more military contributions to this fight”, he added.
Beyond the airstrikes, Obama’s strategy has thus far included military support for Iraqi troops and the deployment of about 50 U.S. Special Forces members in Syria.
That strategy, based an worldwide coalition made up of 65 countries and the decision to avoid another military intervention like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, for some time has faced criticism that has only grown harsher following the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.
As was the case in his primetime Oval Office address a week ago, Obama offered no shift in policy, but admitted: “We are recognizing that progress needs to keep coming faster”.
“Iraq syndrome is still hanging there”, he said, referring to a hangover from the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, “and the public doesn’t really think that war is going to solve the ISIS problem”. “The president has shown that now on a number of occasions”, Carter said.
While scaling up his ISIS messaging, Obama has also attempted to counter anti-Islam sentiments in the United States, insisting that the U.S.is not at war with the millions of peaceful Muslims who have decried terrorism.
It’s been more than a year since U.S. President Barack Obama has convened his national security team at the Pentagon.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, said on Monday: “It’s obvious that the president’s current strategy isn’t working”.
President Obama is now in the midst of his Reassurance Tour, aimed at convincing the American people he’s doing all he can – yes, really he is – about fighting the terror that so recently and so predictably came to our own shores as it had to Paris.
That is a major shift since Obama’s first term in the White House, when he was hailed for authorizing a high-risk special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Obama has tried to use his bully pulpit as a counterpoint to Trump and his widely condemned proposal to bar Muslims from entering the U.S. The White House scheduled a conference call Monday with religious leaders about ways to fight discrimination and promote religious tolerance.
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Playing a clip similar to the one played on CBS, Holt ended the 58-second extended brief with the addition that Obama visited the Pentagon to meet “with his National Security Council” and “will also visit the National Counterterrorism Center [on Thursday] before traveling to Hawaii on Friday for Christmas vacation”.
