President Obama Gives Update on ISIS, Says Lone Wolf Threat ‘Harder to Detect, Harder to Prevent’ - East Idaho News
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President Obama Gives Update on ISIS, Says Lone Wolf Threat ‘Harder to Detect, Harder to Prevent’

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obamapentagonJPG?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1436217599785ABC News(WASHINGTON) — Surrounded by top military officials in the Pentagon Briefing Room, President Obama reaffirmed on Monday that sending U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS is not the answer to defeating the terror group, and noted how the lone wolf terror threat in the U.S. remains a difficult one to track.  

In response to a question, Obama said sending US troops to fight ISIS was not discussed at Monday’s Pentagon briefing.  He said the “strong consensus” among his advisers is that the best way to fight ISIS is to develop local security forces. “It’s not enough for us to send in American troops to temporarily set back organizations like ISIS” that would leave a void that could be filled by extremists afterwards.  

He said it was vital to prepare local ground forces the U.S. could partner with because it’s going to take more than just defeating ISIS on the battlefield, but ensuring long term governance.  

“If we try to do everything ourselves across the Middle East, in North Africa we’ll be playing whack-a-mole,” Obama said, and dealing with a series of unintended consequences the U.S. didn’t plan for.  

Obama also spoke about the domestic threat posed by ISIS that inspires potential lone wolf extremists in the U.S.  He noted that the U.S. has done a lot to prevent high-profile larger 9-11 style attacks, but the threat of lone wolves is “harder to detect, harder to prevent.” And because they’re harder to detect that means, “were going to have to pick up our game to prevent these attacks.”

In the Pentagon Briefing Room, the President was flanked by Defense Secretary Ash Carter, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work,  Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral James Winnefeld, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Lloyd Austin, Centcom commander, Gen. David Rodriguez, Africom Commander, and Gen. Joseph Votel, SOCOM commander.

The President said that ISIS has dug into many urban civilian areas in both Iraq and Syria and “it will take time to root them out.”  He said that would be the job of local forces with American and coalition training and air support.

He restated statistics heard from Pentagon officials that there have been 5,000 coalition airstrikes and that ISIS has lost 25 percent of the populated areas it controlled. He listed off their defeats in Iraq and Syria noting that they were done through local military forces.  

Obama also said the U.S. would be intensifying more activity in Syria. “In short, ISIL’s recent losses in both Syria and Iraq prove that ISIL can and will be defeated. Indeed, we’re intensifying our efforts against ISIL’s base in Syria,” he said. “Our airstrikes will continue to target the oil and gas facilities that fund so much of their operations.”

Just as there have been successes, Obama cautioned that there have been setbacks, like Ramadi.  He said it was the fall of Ramadi that galvanized the Iraqi government to speed up the training of Sunni tribal forces which had been “moving too slowly.”  He also said he wanted to see more movement on the other slowly moving training program, “I made clear to my team that we will do more to train the moderate Syrian opposition.”

Though he was not expected to take questions, President Obama did respond to two questions; one on the possibility of a veto for the Defense budget and the other on whether more American troops will be headed to Iraq.  

Obama said that his commitment in a budget bill is ensuring that current fights aren’t shortchanged by devoting funding “to things we don’t need now” that could make the U.S. “less secure.”


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