W.H.: Armed Prison Raid in Iraq ‘Not Mission Creep,’ But Capitalizing on Success

UNKNOWN FEMALE: “Thanks. Pentagon officials have been insistent that the mission to rescue the prisoners that claimed the life of Master Sergeant Willard is not an example of mission creep. Do you stand by that? If so why?” 
EARNEST: “Yes, I stand by that. Yes. And the reason simply is the approach the president has taken to implementing this strategy is to look for opportunities to capitalize on those elements of our strategy that have been particularly successful. One example is something the Department of Defense announced a couple weeks ago which is a decision to increase the amount of support that the United States is providing to some elements of the Syrian moderate opposition, particularly those elements in northeastern Syria. We have done that because we saw that the preliminary support that we provided to them was support that they used to make important gains against ISIL in northeastern Syria. The president sort of looking at this broader strategy that we have, identified this as an element of our strategy that's worked particularly well. And so his team has worked to provide him some options to -- some options to essentially ramp up that element of the strategy. Another thing that we have found to be useful is our efforts to build up the capacity and performance of some Iraqi security forces, including Peshmerga forces. We have seen those Peshmerga forces demonstrate important capabilities, and they have taken actions with the advice and assistance of U.S. military personnel in a variety of ways. So what you saw in the carrying out of this specific operation was an effort to capitalize on our success in advising and assisting Peshmerga forces to carry out operations. Again, this isn't an example of mission creep as much as it is an example of the administration taking a look at our strategy and trying to capitalize on those elements of the strategy that had been particularly successful.”