Defense secretary updates House panel on military campaign against ISIL

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter presented a status report on Tuesday before the House Armed Services Committee on the U.S. military strategy in the Middle East,  including the campaign against ISIL.

“Now, ISIL’s attacks in Paris, like those it has perpetrated elsewhere, were barbaric and they were an assault on the civilization we defend,” Ash told the committee.  “ISIL requires, and it will receive, a lasting defeat. The president had directed us to intensify and adapt the military campaign before the Paris attacks, and we will describe those new actions today. We continue to accelerate our efforts in the wake of Paris, and we are urging others to do the same because those attacks further highlighted the stakes, that not just the United States, but the world has in this fight.”

Carter also explained how U.S. forces are going after the terrorist group, as well as how support troops are being deployed.

 “To move people and supplies, ISIL now must rely on backroads, where we locate and destroy them,” Carter said. “Elsewhere in Iraq, we have about 3,500 troops at six locations in Iraq in support of Iraqi Security Forces, the ISF.  There, we’ve been providing increased lethal fire and augmenting the existing training, advising and assisting program.  And we’re prepared to do more as Iraq shows capability and motivation in the counter-ISIL fight and in resolving its political divisions. Now, the progress in the Sunni portions of Iraq – as the campaign to recapture Ramadi shows – has been slow.”