White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Obama had reviewed Pentagon plans for airstrikes in Syria, but would not confirm that they were complete and awaiting the president’s signature, as Hagel suggested. He said the president “has not yet approved its finality,” but did not say whether Obama had sought revisions or a delay.
Hagel said the plan calls for targeting Islamic State strongholds in northeastern Syria, including its command-and-control networks, logistics capabilities and infrastructure. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla. forces in the Middle East, and was presented to Obama on Wednesday when he visited U.S. Hagel told the committee that a bombing plan for Syria was approved by his office, by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and by Army Gen. “There will always be risks … but we believe that risk is justified given the threat.” “We recognize this is difficult, we recognize there is no good option here,” Hagel told the House Armed Services Committee. But Hagel defended the plan to support Iraq’s army and Kurdish forces and slowly build up a separate proxy force in Syria to take on the militants there. The approach highlights growing questions about the administration’s still-evolving strategy against the Sunni extremists who have overrun about a third of Syria and Iraq. “If we can restore the border, it goes a long way to putting pressure on that will lead to its ultimate defeat,” Dempsey told reporters traveling with him in Paris. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, outlined a narrow mission for the prospective Syrian force, saying the lightly armed fighters might be assigned to recapture and police Syria’s now-open eastern border to prevent militants from crossing into Iraq.
In a further sign of a measured approach, Gen. “I’m pleased that Congress, a majority of Democrats and a majority of Republicans, have now voted to support a key element of our strategy” to train and equip the Syrian opposition, Obama said minutes after the Senate passage. The GOP-controlled House approved the plan Wednesday. The hesitation comes as a bipartisan majority in the Senate voted 78 to 22 to approve Obama’s plan to vet, train and arm about 5,400 moderate Syrian rebels over the next year to help confront the militants. airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said Thursday, but President Obama has not signed off on the plan, adding a level of uncertainty to the military strategy. The Pentagon’s top leadership has approved an ambitious target list for U.S.
0 kommentar(er)
