W.H.: Obama Hasn’t Decided Yet if ISIL Leaders Will Be Taken Out

Last week, President Obama laid out what he said was a comprehensive strategy for "degrading and defeating" ISIS. But according to today's White House press briefing, the president has yet to decide whether ISIS's senior leadership should be "taken out" as part of this mission.

Excerpt:

ACOSTA: “Has the president authorized Pentagon to target individual leaders of ISIS in Syria or Iraq. And I know in the past, the White House has said that senior leaders of al Qaeda have been decimated. Do you want to see same thing happen with ISIS? Do you want to take those leaders out?”
EARNEST: “Well, Jim, I will say that the president is still reviewing the plans and proposals that the Department of Defense has been hard at work developing. When this situation first cropped up — I’m clearly referring to the significant advance that ISIL made across western and northern Iraq back in June — the president immediately directed the United States military to increase significantly the amount of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions that were conducted in that region of the world. And that has been, in part, a partial of  our effort to improve our knowledge about the situation on the ground. Pentagon planners in turn have used that knowledge to develop some plans and target lists and other things for the president to consider as he puts together a military strategy for confronting ISIL. This is a strategy that involves, as we talked about little bit here already, training and equipping soldiers on the ground in Iraq, that means Iraqi and Kurdish security forces. In Syria, that means ramping up our assistance to the Syrian opposition fighters to take the fight to the ISIL on the ground. And they can be backed up with American military air power. But, you know, those plans are still being reviewed by the president and —“ [crosstalk]
ACOSTA: “In terms of authorizing air strikes, you are not there yet? You are not ready to announce that yet?”
EARNEST: “Well, there are—“
ACOSTA: “Sorry, I mean strikes on individual leaders.”
EARNEST: “There are air strikes that the president has already ordered in Iraq, and some 150 or so have already been carried out. But, as it relates to the specific plans that president is reviewing, I don’t have additional insight to share with you about them right now.”
ACOSTA: “You say degrade and destroy ISIS — that should be in taking out their leadership, isn’t that right?”
EARNEST: “Well, depriving these organizations of leaders, either on the battle field or in the command and control centers certainly would have the effect of degrading and possibly ultimately destroying them. But I don’t want to get ahead of any decision making at the presidential level that still needs to be done.”