CBS’ Garrett: Iraqi Sunnis to Train to Fight ISIS ‘Have Been Very Hard to Find’
NN FEMALE: “Details of the retooled White House U.S./Iraq strategy are coming into focus, this morning. President Obama authorized the deployment of hundreds of additional troops to help reverse gains by ISIS, but their limited role is under fire. Major Garrett is at the White House with its new plan and its critics. Major, good morning.”
GARRETT: “Good morning. The president’s move adds 450 troops, but only 75 are trainers. They will look for Iraqi Sunnis to equip and prepare for battle, but they have been very hard to find. And the Iraqi Sunnis who have taken up arms have performed poorly. Will this be the last batch of Americans sent to Iraq? The White House cannot say.”
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GARRETT (voice-over): “The U.S. will create a new training base in Al Taqqadum in western Iraq between the key Anbar provincial cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, both now under ISIS control. The base could be vulnerable to attack and that's why most of the new U.S. personnel will provide security. The mission, one Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi requested after ISIS terrorist overran Ramadi will be to increase if possible, the effectiveness of U.S. air strikes and advice Iraqi troops. Soon, the U.S. will have 3,550 military personnel in Iraq up from 275 a year ago. But the U.S. will not send Apache Attack helicopters or put U.S. troops on the front lines to coordinate air strikes with Iraqi troop movements.”
MCCAIN: “"We will continue to see 75 percent of the combat missions flown return to base without having discharged their weapons, since we have no one on the ground to identify targets."
GARRETT (voice-over): “House Speaker John Boehner called the latest troop increase a step in the right direction, but said Congress needs to see more.”
BOEHNER: "Well we have one commander in chief at a time, that's the president of the United States. And he has no strategy, as he admitted himself, much less an overarching strategy to take on ISIL and the other terrorist threats that we face in the Middle East.”
GARRETT (voice-over): “The White House faulted Boehner for failing to debate new legal authority for the president to confront ISIS.”
EARNEST: "When it comes to these kinds of matters, Congress should have a voice. And Congress, frankly, shouldn't be ducking the debate."
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GARRETT: “This new approach means that the long-planned coalition effort to retake the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which fell to ISIS one year ago, will likely be delayed until Iraqi forces, still divided by sectarian suspicions, attempt at some point in the future to take Ramadi in the west.”
