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Top US General: We Are 'Certainly Considering' Using Ground Troops In Iraq
Screenshot/www.pbs.org General Martin E. Dempsey.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday that he would be open to sending a small number of US ground troops into Iraq to help retake the country's second-largest city, which is held by the Islamic State militant group (also known as ISIS or ISIL).
General Martin E. Dempsey, President Barack Obama's top military adviser, told the House committee that, despite recent Iraqi military successes against ISIS, the door remained open for the use of US ground troops in the country to retake Mosul.
“I’m not predicting at this point that I would recommend that those forces in Mosul and along the border would need to be accompanied by US forces, but we’re certainly considering it,” Dempsey told the committee.
Although Dempsey left the door open to a wider military role for the US in Iraq, he said an American ground presence would not go beyond a "modest" force. However, Dempsey told the committee that Iraq would need tens of thousands of effective military troops to retake all the terrain lost to ISIS.
"We're going to need about 80,000 competent Iraqi security forces to recapture territory lost, and eventually the city of Mosul, to restore the border," Dempsey said.
The US has been launching airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq since August. The use of US air power helped the Kurdish peshmerga retake the critical Mosul Dam from ISIS control. But more recently, the effectiveness of the strikes has been called into question.
ISIS has continued its offensive in Anbar, effectively bringing about 80% of the province under jihadist control. The province abuts Baghdad and can provide the militant group with a vital launching pad for staging offensives against the capital.
Dempsey previously told the House Armed Services Committee in September that there could be a need for greater military action against the militants once they moved into densely populated cities.
Obama is planning on boosting the number of American military advisers in Iraq to 3,100. About 1,400 US troops are already in the country.
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