Defense Officials Present Dim Picture of War Against ISIS

Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 16, the nation’s two top defense officials, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (shown, left) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey (shown, right), presented a less-than-optimistic prospect of success for the Obama administration’s new strategy to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). (The Obama administration prefers to use ISIL, for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.)

 

A report from the McClatchy Washington Bureau carried by the Miami Herald noted that Hagel and Dempsey outlined a list of hurdles any U.S. plan needs to overcome to defeat ISIS, including uncertainty that Iraqi military forces can be reconstituted to become an effective force against ISIS, as well as uncertainty that a U.S.-trained Syrian force will make fighting ISIS a higher priority than fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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