The top military and civilian leaders of the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, are both sounding extremely pessimistic on the ISIS war today, warning in testimony to the House Armed Services Committee that the training schemes in Iraq aren’t doing particularly well.
While Carter has previously lashed the Iraqi military as incompetent for losing repeatedly to ISIS, today he revealed that another major problem is common across both Iraq and Syria, that the Pentagon’s training scheme simply isn’t finding nearly enough recruits to meet their goals.
The half billion dollar training scheme in Syria, aimed at creating a new, pro-US rebel faction, has similarly fallen far short of their plans, aimed at creating tens of thousands of new fighters every year, but struggling to get more than a few hundred qualified recruits to vet and train.
While Congressional hawks have been presenting the failure to get local fighters as justification for more US ground troops, Gen. Dempsey appeared opposed to that idea, saying that he would not recommend deployments of US troops just to try to “stiffen the spine of local forces.”
Both officials have repeatedly complained that Iraq’s military should be able to defeat ISIS easily with their numerical advantages, but that the troops continue to retreat in major battles. Chiding Iraq for their troops’ low morale, however, doesn’t seem to include any recommendations on how Iraq can fix this, and the Abadi government has gotten increasingly defensive, seeing the Pentagon’s comments as just an attempt to shift blame for their mutual failures in the war.
And what are they going to do? Stick to the same plan and throw more money at a problem of their own creation.
Dubya started this nightmare with his bogus 2003 invasion of Iraq based on
blatant lies and subterfuge. Oboomer has added to Dubya's debacle by dumping
endless amounts of arms costing the USG taxpayer (billions) into the region.
Today, Dubya is a drunk on his ranch, and Oboomer is (eagerly) waiting for his
shift to end so he can pass this disaster off to the next flunky AIPAC, Big
Business, and the Wall Street moneychangers stick into that office.
"…2003 invasion of Iraq based on blatant lies and subterfuge."
— not to mention whisperings from his god.
"…dumping endless amounts of arms costing the USG taxpayer (billions)…"
— that would be TRILLIONS if you add it all up and look downrange a generation or two.
Regarding Bush, he abandoned that "ranch" as soon as he left office. He has lived at a heavily-guarded compound in Dallas ever since. I put "ranch" in quotes because as any real Texan will tell you, an actual ranch has to have livestock — cattle, horses, sheep. hogs, chickens, something. Karl Rove told Bush to buy a parcel of empty scrub land in order to make the sheeple believe he was a regular guy.
I find it ironic that Bush would relocate to Dallas, given that it is the HQ of his family's arch-nemesis, Ross Perot. Don't forget, Perot ran for president in 1992 to siphon votes from Bush41, then endorsed liberal Democrat Ann Richards when W ran for governor in 1994.
Video: WMD Lies From Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc
This, my friends, is the ultimate clip regarding WMD lies – the clip we have all been waiting for. All the lies of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell compiled together, brilliantly done, with some great "extra" material.
If the Iraqis don't care enough to join their army and fight ISIS, why should we? We broke the country, and now we can't put it back together again. The cats refuse to be herded.
President Obama leading the world towards doom by giving Isis time to make weapons of mass destruction perhaps nuclear bombs