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 The House of Representatives gave a green light to a key plank of
Obama's strategy against Islamic State, approving authorization for
the Pentagon to train and arm moderate Syrian rebels to fight the
radical Islamist militants. The legislation now goes to the Senate.
Obama, who has spent much of his presidency distancing himself from
the Iraq War, stressed that air strikes would be the central U.S.
contribution to the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,
along with coordinating a coalition that he said now includes more
than 40 countries.
"I want to be clear. The American forces that have been deployed to
Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission," Obama said in a
speech at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
His spokesman Josh Earnest said some U.S. military advisers could be
deployed to forward positions to help direct Iraqi security forces
and call in air strikes, but said they would "not be personally or
directly engaging the enemy."
The possibility of U.S. soldiers operating in forward positions with
local forces raised concerns that Washington, which withdrew its
forces from Baghdad in 2011 after eight years of conflict, could
once again be drawn into a bigger engagement.
On Tuesday General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's
Joint Chiefs of Staff, had raised the possibility of such eventual
forward deployments during a committee hearing.
NO U.S. GROUND WAR
"If General Dempsey determined that it may be necessary to forward
deploy some of the American advisers, then he will bring that option
to the president, and the president said that he would consider it
on a case by case basis," Earnest told reporters traveling with
Obama on Air Force One.
The House of Representatives approved the measure authorizing the
Syrian rebel training plan despite some resistance from Republicans
and Democrats, some of whom expressed concern about being sucked
back into war in Iraq.
The Senate is expected to also pass the authorization by the end of
the week. It will last until Dec. 11.
Lawmakers of both parties voiced skepticism about the White House
strategy when they questioned one of its key architects, Secretary
of State John Kerry. Members of the Foreign Relations Committee
raised doubts about the ability of local Iraqi and Syrian forces to
fight Islamic State and questioned whether Obama had the legal
authority to carry out a lengthy operation.
The United States has launched more than 160 air strikes against
Islamic State targets in Iraq and Obama has authorized similar
attacks against the group's strongholds in Syria.
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More than 1,600 American advisers have been dispatched to help Iraqi
forces but Obama does not want them to get involved in ground combat
to avoid a repeat of the Iraq war begun by his Republican
predecessor, George W. Bush. In testimony to a Senate committee,
Dempsey had outlined scenarios in which he might recommend having
U.S. troops do more, potentially accompanying Iraqis during
complicated offensives, such as a battle to retake the northern city
of Mosul from Islamic State fighters.
LIMITS OF AIR POWER
Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told CBS's "This Morning" that
Dempsey's remark made sense because air power alone has its
limitations. "The reality is they're not going be able to be
successful against ISIS strictly from the air," he said, using an
acronym for Islamic State.
Obama was to meet his top national security advisers at the White
House later on Wednesday to discuss a meeting of leaders at the U.N.
General Assembly next week on how to get control of foreign fighters
who have sworn allegiance to Islamic State and could return to their
home countries to attack civilians.
The FBI director and the heads of the Department of Homeland
Security and the National Counter terrorism Center said that people
radicalized by online propaganda from Islamic State and other groups
posed the main terrorist threat to America.
They told a congressional committee that while there was no evidence
that Islamic State planned an attack on American soil, its vigorous
propaganda and sophisticated online recruitment efforts created a
clear potential threat.
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Patricia Zengerle and
David Lawder; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by David Storey and
Howard Goller)
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