Carter, McCain tangle over Pentagon’s Islamic State strategy
Last week, Carter announced that the Pentagon plans to send a special operations team to Iraq to conduct raids, capture ISIL leaders and free hostages. The unit is expected to include 100 troops. He also committed to adding more special forces advisers to a 50-man unit scheduled to train fighters in Syria.
The Pentagon maintains that Iraqi forces have made progress in retaking Ramadi, the provincial capital in the western part of the country, from ISIL fighters. Last month, Kurdish fighters wrested control of the village of Sinjar in northern Iraq from the Islamic State. In Syria, U.S. warplanes have destroyed oil tankers and infrastructure that ISIL relies on to finance its attacks.
McCain derided the Pentagon’s strategy as too limited and moving too slowly to deal with the ISIL threat. He called for a larger force of U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. Those forces would train and advise Iraqi forces and embed them closer to the fight, including troops who can call in airstrikes. He also advocated sending U.S. troops to help retake Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said deploying a significant force of U.S. troops to the region would be counterproductive.
“Putting large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria would play directly into the ISIL narrative we are working to defeat – potentially providing our enemies a propaganda victory that could be exploited for recruiting and fundraising purposes,” Reed said.
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