The
top American commander in the Middle East told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that the United States would not reach its goal of
training 5,000 Syrian fighters anytime soon.
Congress Questions General on Syria
Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the head of
the United States Central Command, told a Senate panel that only a very
small number of Syrian fighters trained by the United States remained
in the fight.
By REUTERS
WASHINGTON
— Only four or five Syrian individuals trained by the United States
military to confront the Islamic State remain in the fight, the head of
the United States Central Command told a Senate panel on Wednesday, a
bleak acknowledgment that the Defense Department’s $500 million program
to raise an army of Syrian fighters has gone nowhere.
Gen.
Lloyd J. Austin III, the top American commander in the Middle East,
also told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States
would not reach its goal of training 5,000 Syrian fighters anytime soon.
His
comments came during a testy hearing in which a succession of senators
from both parties criticized the American-led effort in Iraq and Syria
against the Islamic State, the Sunni militancy also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Senator John McCain,
Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee,
questioned why the United States had not set up a no-fly zone over Syria to help protect civilians from bombardment
by the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Senator Claire
McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, said that despite all the “good news”
talk from American military officials about how well the war effort was
going, “the practical realities aren’t being embraced.”
In
May, the Defense Department began its training program for up to 5,400
fighters a year, in what White House officials described as a necessary
component of President Obama’s strategy to use local troops on the
ground against the Islamic State, combined with American air power.
Mr. Obama has been loath to send American ground troops into Iraq or Syria,
and has insisted that ground combat against the Islamic State be
handled by forces within the countries fighting to rid their territories
of the group.
In
Iraq, that strategy has had limited success. Iraqi security forces and
Kurdish pesh merga fighters have retaken some territory that had been
seized by the Islamic State, and the group has stalled in its expansion
there. But in recent weeks the campaign to retake Ramadi has stalled,
and efforts to take back Mosul and Falluja have taken a back seat.
In
Syria, the effort to use local ground forces has yet to take off.
General Austin told the Senate committee that many fighters in the first
class of 54 graduates of the training program for Syrians were attacked
in July by an offshoot of Al Qaeda, the Nusra Front, and either fled or
were killed, leaving only a “small number” of rebels still in the
fight.
He
acknowledged that the program was behind schedule, and said that the
military was reviewing it. Asked how many fighters were still in Syria,
General Austin said that “it’s a small number.” He added, “We’re talking
four or five.”
Defense officials said that only 100 to 120 Syrian fighters were in training right now.
“So
we’re counting on our fingers and toes at this point when we had
envisioned 5,400 by the end of the year,” Ms. McCaskill said.
The
White House acknowledged that the program had not succeeded. “The
administration knew on the front end that this would be a quite
difficult task, and it’s proved to be even more difficult than we
thought,” Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on
Wednesday.
Mr.
Earnest tried to turn the tables on critics of the administration by
noting that they had long argued in favor of American training of Syrian
rebels.
“Many
of our critics had proposed this specific option as the cure-all for
all of the policy challenges we’re facing in Syria right now,” he said.
General Austin also told the committee that he could not comment on an internal Pentagon investigation
into whether senior military officers manipulated the conclusions of
reports on the war against the Islamic State, because the investigation
was in progress. He said that “once the investigation is completed,
based on the findings, you can be assured that I will take appropriate
actions.”
Separately
on Wednesday, France’s defense minister said that French forces would
join the coalition of Western and Middle Eastern countries carrying out
airstrikes on the Islamic State in Syria, with the first strikes likely
to come in the next couple of weeks.
The
airstrikes would represent an expansion of France’s military activity
in the region, where it has already been involved in bombing Islamic
State targets in Iraq and began reconnaissance flights in Syria last week.
The
Islamic State has control of much of the territory that extends from
northern Syria across the Iraqi border to Mosul and south to within
about 30 miles of Baghdad.
Peter Baker contributed reporting from Washington, and Alissa J. Rubin from Parisnytimes.com
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