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Secretary
of Defense Ash Carter talks with Senate Armed Services Committee
Chairman Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., before a hearing on counter-Islamic
State strategy, July 7, 2015.
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| Joe Gromelski/Stars and Stripes | |
Stars and Stripes
Published: July 7, 2015
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Secretary
of Defense Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin
Dempsey listen to opening statements at a Senate Armed Services
Committee hearing on counter-Islamic State strategy, July 7, 2015.
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WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Tuesday asked the Senate
for more patience and support for a train-and-equip program against the
Islamic State, despite much lower than expected turnout.
Only 60 moderate Syrian fighters have been trained this year, but
recent gains in the country by U.S.-backed militias show the strategy
can work, Carter told skeptical senators on the Armed Services
Committee. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., committee chairman, called claims
about success delusional.
Carter and Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey came to Capitol Hill to
make the administration case for the current war strategy a day after
President Barack Obama underscored the importance of training ground
forces and allied militias on a rare trip to the Pentagon. The
administration had a strategy meeting on the often uneven, year-old
Islamic State offensive.
“It is going to take some time to get the numbers up to the point where they can have an effect,” Carter told senators.
The U.S. has waged thousands of airstrikes since it began bombing in
Iraq and Syria in August, but its other key strategy of training allied
ground forces has gone much slower than anticipated.
The Pentagon estimated it could train about 5,000 moderate Syrian fighters this year.
Carter called 60 Syrians trained “not impressive” and he blamed the low
turnout on the rigorous vetting process. Among other requirements, the
Pentagon cannot train any fighters who have been involved in atrocities
or would create a risk of “green-on-blue” insider attacks on other
allied forces.
Carter said he has been given assurances that the number of trainees will grow but provided no future estimates.
In Iraq, 450 more personnel were deployed in recent weeks to Taqaddum
air base to train Sunni tribal recruits for the war effort and advise
the country’s security forces. The U.S. has trained about 10,500 Iraqi
army and counter-terrorism troops, though it had hoped to train 24,000
by this fall.
In recent weeks, U.S. airstrikes have helped the Kurds, along with Arab
militias, reclaim the border town of Tal Abyad from the hardline
fighters, cut supply lines and put pressure on the group in its power
center of Raqqa province in Syria, according to the Pentagon.
Carter said that the Kurdish successes in Syria show the U.S. approach
can work with a dependable ground force, and that the train-and-equip
programs to fight the Islamic State must be strengthened.
“Those examples demonstrate, again, that where we have had a credible
ground force working in a coordinated way with the coalition air
campaign, ISIL has suffered,” Carter said, using an alternate name for
the Islamic State.
McCain said the president’s claims that the United States has taken out
fighters and pushed the group from its territory recently is correct
but irrelevant, because the group has expanded overall in Iraq and
Syria, and become more influential in the Middle East, Africa and
central Asia over the past year.
“When it comes to ISIL, President Obama’s comments yesterday at the
Pentagon reveal the disturbing degree of self-delusion that
characterizes the administration’s thinking,” McCain said.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said the slow pace of training is not the
central problem of the U.S. strategy; it is a lack of confidence among
the Iraqi forces that makes them unwilling to fight.
“We have been training them for nearly a decade,” he said, referring to
the billions of dollars the U.S. spent between 2003-2011 to build the
security forces.
Sessions criticized the Obama administration for not deploying special
operators and troops to the battlefield to advise the Iraqis and guide
airstrikes — and pressed Dempsey on whether such a move could swing the
war effort.
Dempsey has said since last year he would considered sending ground
forces if needed, but he has deemed them unnecessary. He said Tuesday
that the environment is not right for ground forces and the only “silver
bullet” is getting Iraqis to fight on their own.
“I agree there are points on the battlefield where embedded forces …
would make them more capable,” Dempsey said. “I can tell you I have not
recommended it.”
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