The Hill – 06/08/2015 – Republicans blasted President Obama on Monday after he said the U.S. did not have a “complete strategy” against ISIS yet.
“We don’t yet have a complete strategy,” Obama told reporters during the G-7 summit in Germany, reported The Hill’s Jordan Fabian.
Obama was referring to efforts to train and arm local Iraqi forces to reclaim territory lost to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“The details of that are not yet worked out,” he said.
But Republicans pounced on his remarks, which came 10 months after the start of the U.S.-lead fight against ISIS.
“The threat posed by ISIL is growing exponentially, and President Obama’s lack of a strategy is Commander-in-Chief Malpractice,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a 2016 contender, using an alternate name for the terror group.
“It’s long past time we upped our game to confront this dangerous and growing threat to the American homeland,” he added.
“It is no surprise this Administration does not have a ’complete strategy’ for training Iraqis to fight ISIS,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas). “What is surprising is that the President admitted it.”
TRAINING TROUBLES: Obama also pressed Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi to speed up the development of local forces.
Defense officials told The Hill on Monday that the training mission has stalled at one of five coalition training sites because Baghdad has not sent any new recruits.
The U.S. is currently training 2,601 Iraqi forces, but none of them are at the Al Assad site, officials said.
“Al Assad has zero. And Al Assad has had zero now for some time,” said a defense official on background.
The training and equipping of Sunni tribal fighters became more urgent after the fall last month of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, a region known as the “Sunni heartland.”
Sunni forces who were defending the city said they had not received any training or equipment from the central government, which is dominated by Iraqi Shiites.
The U.S. has resisted directly training or equipping Sunni forces out of concern it could undermine Baghdad, which views the Sunni minority population with mistrust.