Last week, a US general testified to Congress and floated the idea of more US troops on the ground in Iraq.
Senator Mike Rounds: General Austin with regards to the
challenges surrounding the retaking Mosul and Raqqa by December of this
year coming up. You've currently got about 4,000 ground forces, if I'm
correct. Is that enough? Do you have enough to assist in your plans to
retake Mosul and Raqqa?
Gen Lloyd Austin: The, uh, the approach that we have used -- and
continue to use, as you know, Senator, to use the indigenous forces in
the operations on the ground and enable those forces with out aieral
fires and other enablers. As we look towards Raqqa and other and Mosul
clearly there will be things that we want to do to, uh, increase the
capability a bit to, uh -- to, uh increase the pace of operations and
that will require some additional capability and we've gone through and
done some analysis to see what types of -- what types of things we need
to provide and that's, uh, we've made those recommendations.
Senator Mike Rounds: Could you share those recommendations with this Committee?
Gen Lloyd Austin: Uh, no, sir. I would not care to do so because I have just provided those to my -- to my leadership.
Senator Mike Rounds: But you have -- you have made those
recommendations and you're waiting on a response to your recommendations
at this time?
Gen Lloyd Austin: Yes, sir, it's -- it'll work its way up the chain here.
Senator Mike Rounds: If you were allowed to have, uh, more ground
troops what would be the capabilities that you could accomplish? Or
what could you accomplish if you had more individuals on the ground
there
Gen Lloyd Austin: We could, uh, develop more, better human
intelligence. We could, uh, we could perhaps provide, uh, uh, more
advise and assist teams at various levels. We could, uh, we could
increase, uh, our assistance in terms of providing help with some
logistical issues and, uh, we could increase some elements of the
special operations footprint.
And yet, as Ava and C.I. note, two Sunday chat and chews wasted time gas bagging and refusing to deal with issues like this.
Bill Van Auken (WSWS) noted:
The US must escalate its intervention in Iraq and Syria with more
troops on the ground, both the outgoing commander of US military forces
in the Middle East and his designated replacement told Congress in
hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Gen. Joseph Votel, the current head of the US Special Operations
Command, who has been tapped by President Barack Obama to lead US
Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees both the ongoing intervention
in Iraq and Syria and the continuing American occupation of Afghanistan,
told the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday that an offensive to
retake the Syrian city of Raqqa and the Iraqi city of Mosul from the
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) “will take more resources” than
the Pentagon currently has deployed in the region.
Who's talking about this publicly?
Where's the national dialogue?
AL MADA is reporting that the liberation of Mosul is being planned and will require US troops -- at least 180 of them.
And where's the national dialogue?
And when is President Barack Obama going to stand before the American people and discuss what is going on?
And when is the media going to devote significant time and attention to this?