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Terror Networks
Obama Says US Not Losing Against Daesh
2015-05-23
[Tolo News] US President Barack Obama
They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them...
has described the loss of key Iraqi territory to Daesh as a tactical setback, while insisting the war against the jihadist group is not being lost.

"I don't think we're losing," Obama said in an interview with news magazine The Atlantic published Thursday, days after the Iraqi city of Ramadi was overrun.

"There's no doubt there was a tactical setback, although Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time," he said.

Since August 2014, on Obama's orders, a US-led coalition has hit more than 6,000 targets in Iraq and Syria with Arclight airstrikes, with the aim of degrading the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
 group.

Obama has refused to return US combat troops to Iraq, following a long brutal war after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

But the rout in Ramadi has called into question US strategy and the credibility of Iraq's central government.

Obama blamed it on a lack of training and reinforcement of Iraq's own security forces.

"They have been there essentially for a year without sufficient reinforcements," he said.

"But it is indicative that the training of Iraqi security forces, the fortifications, the command-and-control systems are not happening fast enough in Anbar, in the Sunni parts of the country."
Posted by:Fred

#6  Correction, we HAD positive results. Then almost everyone who knew what they were doing, was sacked by Maliki and replace by stooges. Obama wanted out, allowed this, and then when it came time to show mettle the grunts of the Iraqi army looked for orders. Then discovered everyone officer and up basically fled, leaving them with no command structure.

After that, Mosul fell, and you know the rest. Remember, we had something of an army trained in 2008. It's just that army was gutted, and it's festering corpse left in place until the vultures of ISIS finished the job.
Posted by: Charles   2015-05-23 16:36  

#5  Geez,

I swear we've been "training" and equipping the Iraqi Army since 2004 and we still have no positive results.

Wow.

That's discouraging, especially given how Iraqi young men would stand in line for hours to enlist and endured jacket wallahs and snipers and mortar attacks to keep their place in line.

Thank you Paul Bremer. If we had kept the officer corps from the Old Iraqi Army and used it to organize and train the NEW Iraqi Army, maybe we would have a good army in Iraq and those ex-Saddam officers wouldn't be training Daesh.
Posted by: Bill Clinton   2015-05-23 11:45  

#4  This turns into sort of a Richard Feynman type argument, that winning is the same as loosing, just moving in opposite directions in time. (Feynman used it to describe how antimatter would behave, not how to deal with it.)
Posted by: ed in texas   2015-05-23 09:49  

#3  indicative that the training of Iraqi security forces, the fortifications, the command-and-control systems are not happening fast enough

So who was it, Mr. President, who pulled out the trainers before the Iraqis could stand up on their own? It wasn't the Bushian Surge, was it>
Posted by: Bobby   2015-05-23 08:37  

#2  Interesting phrase, that. Not winning at a positive rate. Does that mean we are winning at a negative rate? Isn't that the same as losing?
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2015-05-23 08:37  

#1  "I don't think we're losing,", he said. "We are simply not winning at a positive rate. A result of the situation I inherited from the previous administration."
Posted by: SteveS   2015-05-23 01:43