Obama insists U.S. will not get drawn into ground war in Iraq
TAMPA, Fla. – President Barack Obama on Wednesday repeated his vow to destroy Islamic terrorists in Syria and Iraq, but he insisted that the United States would not go it alone and promised a military audience that he would not send them back into direct combat.
“Whether in Iraq or in Syria, these terrorists will learn the same thing that the leaders of al-Qaida already know: We mean what we say,” Obama said at MacDill Air Force Base. “We’ve always known that the end of the war in Afghanistan didn’t mean the end of threats or challenges to America.”
But Obama also hailed the official end of America’s combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of the year and said he was not starting another extensive war in the Middle East. He said the U.S. troops currently in Iraq – they will soon number 1,600 – were not there to fight on the ground.
“The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission,” he said. “I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq.”
Obama was at the base to meet with his top military commanders at U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, and his national security team, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. A week ago the president told the nation that he was expanding the U.S. military campaign against the extremists of the Islamic State.
Afterward Obama told service members in a packed gym on the base that the United States had a unique responsibility and capability to lead the world in attacking the extremists.
But he vowed that “we are not going to do this alone” and said that more than 40 countries had offered to help the United States in assisting Iraqis and rebels in Syria to fight against the terrorists.
Aides described the president’s visit to the base as part of an effort to convince Americans of the need to confront the extremists in the Middle East. They said Obama was in a period of intensive focus on national security, which began with the speech announcing broader military action last Wednesday and will continue next week in New York when Obama attends the annual meeting of world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly.