Speaking at a news conference at the Pentagon today, President Obama declared himself “pleased” with the progress in the ongoing ISIS war, insisting the US had been making “significant gains” both in Iraq and Syria “and now Libya,” which the US started attacking on Monday.
Obama’s official claims of progress didn’t appear to be in line with the specifics he talked about in his statement, following the statement about progress on the ground by admitting that “we’re far from freeing Mosul and Raqqa,” and that ISIS is adapting quickly to US attacks.
Obama warned that ISIS is aware of how much attention they can get out of small scale attacks, saying that the US needs to do a better job is disrupting ISIS networks around the world, and not just in the countries that the US war is currently taking place in.
“How we react to this is as important as the efforts we take to destroy ISIS,” Obama insisted, saying that fear of ISIS risked undermining the entire fabric of our society. He did not indicate how the US intends to do more to prevent such small scale attacks, however.
Obama went on to mention the possibility of joint operations with Russia, but insisted he wasn’t confident that Russia could be trusted, and insisted Russia had “failed to take the necessary steps” to win US cooperation.