General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington yesterday.
Reuters
The most senior US military officer yesterday raised the possibility that US troops might need to take on a larger ground role as they fend off Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq, but the White House stressed there would be no combat mission for US ground forces.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there was no intention of placing American military advisers on the ground for direct combat. The US plan relies on other contributions, including air strikes.
Still, he told a Senate hearing: “I’ve mentioned, though, that if I found that circumstance evolving, that I would, of course, change my recommendation.”
Dempsey offered scenarios in which a larger role might be worthwhile, including embedding US forces with Iraqis during a complicated offensive, such as a battle to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State fighters.
“It could very well be part of that particular mission to provide close combat advising or accompanying for that mission,” he said. “But for the day-to-day activities that I anticipate will evolve over time, I don’t see it to be necessary right now.”
US President Barack Obama said last week he would lead an alliance to defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, plunging the US into a conflict in which nearly every country in the Middle East has a stake.
Obama ruled out the possibility of a combat mission that could drag the US into another ground war in Iraq.
Responding to Dempsey’s comments, the White House said Obama’s military advisers had to plan for many possibilities and that overall policy had not changed - that Obama would not deploy US troops in a combat role in Iraq or Syria.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Dempsey was “referring to a hypothetical scenario in which there might be a future situation where he might make a tactical recommendation to the president as it relates to ground troops”.
Dempsey was testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, along with US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, as the Obama administration makes its case to Congress for broadening operations against the IS militants, which would include US air strikes in Syria for the first time.
Hagel said the military plan would be outlined to Obama today by the US Central Command. It envisions striking the militant group’s safe havens to knock out infrastructure, logistics and command capabilities.
Dempsey said the strikes would degrade the group’s capabilities as broader efforts get underway, including training of some 5,400 Syrian fighters.
Congress is expected to approve this week a request from Obama for $500mn to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels, one part of his programme.
“This won’t look like a ‘shock and awe’ campaign because that’s simply not how (the Islamic State group) is organised. But it will be a persistent and sustainable campaign,” Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Shock and awe” was a term popularly used to describe the initial air assault on Baghdad in the US campaign to oust Saddam Hussain in 2003, and refers to use of overwhelming force to undermine an enemy’s will to fight.
Congress pushes ahead with bid to arm Syrian rebels
The US House of Representatives yesterday began debating legislation to authorise President Barack Obama’s plan to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels to fight Islamic State (IS) militants, and lawmakers said the measure would likely pass the full Congress by the end of this week. House Republican leaders unveiled the authorisation on Monday as an amendment to a stopgap funding bill Congress must pass this month, after Obama asked lawmakers to approve the training as part of his broader plan to stop the IS militants who have taken over swaths of Syria and Iraq. House members are expected to vote to pass the amendment today.
