What could go wrong?
Instead of fighting the Islamic State in small units, the U.S.-trained rebels would be attached to larger existing Kurdish and Arab forces. They would be equipped with U.S. communications gear and trained to provide intelligence and to designate Islamic State targets for airstrikes in coordination with U.S. troops outside of Syria, the officials said.
The change amounts to an acknowledgment that the administration’s current approach is not working. It was described by officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because a final decision on how to proceed has not been made.
The discussion of a new approach comes a day after the head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Lloyd Austin, told Congress that the $500 million effort to train 5,000 moderate Syrian rebels in a year had yielded “four or five” new fighters after another 50 or so were captured, wounded or fled in their first encounter with extremist militants.
The new approach is designed to intensify military pressure on Raqqa, the self-declared capital of the so-called caliphate the Islamic State has established across much of Syria and Iraq. The city is sometimes targeted by American-led coalition airstrikes, and Syrian government forces have occasionally targeted it as well.
In addition to changing the role of the U.S.-trained rebels, the Pentagon would scale back their numbers from the original target of 5,400 per year to a much smaller total, perhaps 500, the officials said. Their vetting, designed to weed out terrorist infiltrators, also would be streamlined, one official said Thursday.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters Thursday that officials are looking to make “adjustments,” adding, “We’re asking a host of questions about this program.” He said the plan is for it to continue “in some form or fashion.” He was not more specific.Because Obama would rather that the United States not have an army.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Bashar al-Assad, ISIS, Islamic State, Nusra Front, Syrian Kurds, Syrian uprising
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:01 AM
2 Comments:
This is a verbal readjustment. If it were real, no one in their right mind would be talking about it.
Imbecilic Austin touts how much ground the Kurds have retaken from ISIS.
Ownership of real estate has little to do with anything in this campaign. Once you get east of Aleppo and west of Baghdad, it's much like the extremely-fluid North Africa campaign of WWII.
Austin doesn't strike me as competent at his present level of responsibility, but that's precisely what his CinC wants at CentCom.
NPD-afflicted Barack Obama could not tolerate a Patton, MacArthur, Lee or Grant in that position. Go figure.
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