“The worldwide community – including our allies and partners – has to step up before another attack like Paris”, US defence chief Ash Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, referring to a militant assault with guns and bombs that killed 130 people.
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The Pentagon is urgently calling on Congress to lift a hold on $116 million in funding for its rebooted Syria train-and-equip program after Gen. Lloyd Austin, the chief of US Central Command, revealed its stunning failure at a Capitol Hill hearing in September.
An Iraqi brigadier general involved in the Ramadi operation said civilians who are able to move are being urged to head to Humayrah, a staging ground controlled by Iraqi forces on the southern edge of Ramadi. And it shows that advising, training and assisting is the right tactic.
However, Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee appeared to be disappointed with the ISIL policies of the Obama Administration.
Carter’s remark on Wednesday was the latest sign of USA willingness to intensify its involvement in the fight against the IS, also known as ISIL.
That would “Americanize the conflicts in Iraq and Syria” and fight on the enemy’s terms, Carter said. The necessity of accelerating our efforts, as we’re doing, has only been made more plain by the recent attacks. They are not giants.
Iraqi security forces have struggled for seven months to recapture Ramadi, a provincial capital about 60 miles west of Baghdad.
“The United States is prepared to assist the Iraqi army with additional unique capabilities to help them finish the job, including attack helicopters and accompanying advisers”, Carter said before adding that it would be done “if circumstances dictate and if requested by Prime Minister [Haider] al-Abadi”.
Hundreds of USA troops are deployed in Anbar province, but their mission has been limited primarily to inside-the-wire training activities at Al Asad Air Base and Taqaddum Air Base.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, meanwhile, said the whole government is working to counter ISIS’s recruiting efforts, particularly in social media.
In a prime time address to the nation Sunday, Obama repeated his vow not to put US troops into another ground war in the Middle East. He has approved a handful of targeted raids by special operations forces against militant leaders in Iraq and Syria, but the USA combat role otherwise is limited chiefly to airstrikes. He called for a larger force of US troops in Iraq and Syria.
The slow pace of the Ramadi offensive suggests the more hard task of liberating Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, from Islamic State control will take even longer.
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AFPIt’s unclear if air power can win the war against ISIS, but Carter says that now ground forces are not a suitable option. The Pentagon is seeking the money to provide and transport ammunition, weapons, and other equipment for anti-ISIS fighters in Syria, like the Syrian-Arab Coalition. I would be very – I described the trajectory of that success all around Iraq, Syria, some actions we’re taking in Libya, it is not my principle responsibility… but I met with… officials to talk about what we could do more to strengthen the defense of the homeland, but our principle responsibility is to take the fight to them in Syria and Iraq, I’ve described the actions we’ve taken since I was here last time, and I think we are building momentum.
