WASHINGTON DC – US combat troops could be resent to Iraq if the current strategy to defeat the Islamic State (IS) forces fails, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the US Congress.
“My view at this point is that this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true,” Dempsey said during his testimony before a senate panel to discuss President Barack Obama’s strategy.
“But if it fails to be true, and if there are threats to the United States, then I of course would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of US military ground forces,” he added.
The general’s comments came as US fighter jets conducted the first airstrike southwest of Baghdad on the IS, formerly known as ISIS or ISIL.
The strike went “beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions to hit ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense,” the Pentagon said in a statement on its website. It added that the mission was part of the expanded US strategy to neutralize the radicals.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel also testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, saying the strategy includes four main elements, including broader air campaign, increasing assistance to Iraqi security forces, preventing attacks within the US and sustained humanitarian assistance beefed up by a long, sustained effort.
Hagel cautioned that defeating IS is not about a military solution.
“Destroying ISIL will require more than military efforts alone. It will require political progress in the region and effective partners on the ground in Iraq and Syria.”
He reaffirmed Obama’s statement that US troops would not have a “combat mission” in Iraq. “Instead, these advisors are supporting Iraqi Security Forces and Kurdish forces and supporting the government’s plans to stand up Iraqi National Guard units to help Sunni communities defeat ISIL.”
According to Hagel, the US advisors and intelligence officers will top 1,600 US personnel, once they arrive in Erbil and Baghdad to advise and assist the Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
The US has conducted a total of 162 airstrikes across Iraq so far. France and other countries have vowed to join the US-led air campaign against the Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria.
During the testimony, Dempsey said that US pilots striking IS positions are already in "combat mission," but reaffirmed that the American personnel on the ground have a "combat advisory role."
"The airmen are very much in a combat role. The folks on the ground are in very much a combat advisory role. They are not participating in direct combat," he explained.
The US top general stressed that he would seek further authority, should circumstances change on the ground.
"An example: If the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces were at some point ready to retake Mosul -- a mission that I would find to be extraordinarily complex -- it could very well be part of that particular mission to provide close combat advising or accompanying for that mission," he said.
Dempsey also said another possibility is to deploy American Special Forces alongside the Iraqi and Kurdish forces.
Obama is to meet the head of the US Central Command, General Lloyd Austin, in Tampa, Florida today for briefings on operational plans about his IS strategy.
