Obama to expand airstrikes to Syria, destroy Islamic State ‘wherever they exist’

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Wednesday said he will launch airstrikes in Syria against the Islamic State and expand strikes in Iraq, pledging a U.S.-led coalition to destroy the militants “wherever they exist,” as he expanded the U.S. role in an armed conflict he spent years trying to avoid.

“With a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” he said from the White House.

“Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy,” said of the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS.

Obama also renewed his request to Congress to arm and train moderate Syrian rebel forces to counter the militants inside Syria. Senior administration officials said Saudi Arabia has offered to host the training.

The House of Representatives planned to vote on the $500 million request next week, while the Senate was weighing how or when to take it up.

The campaign in Syria and wider strikes in Iraq would dramatically broaden what had been a limited U.S. mission to protect efforts to help refugees threatened by the Islamic State inside Iraq. While sending U.S. air power into the skies over Syria, Obama said he also would escalate airstrikes in Iraq, “beyond protecting our own people and humanitarian missions, so that we’re hitting ISIL targets as Iraqi forces go on offense.”

Obama said he was ordering 475 American troops to bolster the nearly 1,000 U.S. troops who are advising Iraqi forces at joint operations centers in Baghdad and Irbil. But he stressed anew that he would not commit U.S. combat troops and would instead use U.S. air power to help on-the-ground fighting by other forces.

“I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Obama, who campaigned in 2008 vowing to end the war in Iraq. “It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.”

Officials, who have cautioned that defeating the Islamic State could take years, gave no timetable on when the Syrian strikes might occur, saying the U.S. would not “telegraph” its intent.

Obama likened the approach to fighting the militant group by using targeted military airstrikes to support other countries’ ground troops to “one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”

“After 13 years of war since 9/11, the decision by the president to take on a new fight against this enemy was not an easy one,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said earlier Wednesday in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Obama explained the need to change course, saying that while the Islamic State does not yet threaten the U.S. homeland, it is a growing threat to the Mideast, Europe, and potentially the U.S.

“If left unchecked, these terrorists could pose a growing threat beyond that region, including to the United States,” he said. “Our intelligence community believes that thousands of foreigners – including Europeans and some Americans – have joined them in Syria and Iraq. Trained and battle-hardened, these fighters could try to return to their home countries and carry out deadly attacks.”

In Baghdad, Secretary of State John Kerry met Wednesday with new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi, at the forefront of the fight.

“We stand by Iraq as it continues to build a government that meets the needs of each of Iraq’s diverse communities, and we stand by them as they fight to overcome the single greatest threat that their government, their families, and their neighbors face today,” Kerry said.

Kerry announced that the U.S. is providing another $48 million in humanitarian aid from non-governmental organizations to help the nearly 2 million refugees in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. U.S. aid now totals more than $186 million in fiscal 2014, according to the State Department.

Earlier Wednesday, Obama met with his National Security Council in the Situation Room at the White House as lawmakers and the public continued to call for a more aggressive response.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday showed that 61 percent of voters believe the U.S. taking military action against the Islamic State is in the nation’s interest, vs. 13 percent who do not.

That’s a significant increase since last year, when the U.S. was considering similar action against Syria’s government after its reported use of chemical weapons. Only 21 percent said action was in the nation’s interest then, while 33 percent said it was not.

Support for action has grown since the Islamic State beheaded two American journalists, brutal acts videotaped and released to the world.

Among the most vocal, Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who played a central role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 in the mistaken belief the country harbored weapons of mass destruction, urged Obama Wednesday to be more aggressive. “Our president must understand we are at war and that we must do what it takes, for as long as it takes, to win,” he said.

The U.S. began airstrikes in Iraq on Aug. 8 to protect U.S. personnel and facilities, to support humanitarian efforts and to back Iraqi forces. As of Wednesday, it had conducted a total of 154 strikes.

The U.S. military has conducted two humanitarian operations of 32 air drops of food and supplies in Iraq – near Mount Sinjar and near Amirli. In total, the U.S. military provided more than 800,000 pounds of aid, including 45,500 gallons of water and nearly 122,000 meals ready to eat.

Obama had long sought to minimize U.S. involvement in Syria, where a civil war pits President Bashar Assad’s Iran-backed forces against the Islamic State and weaker insurgent groups, including al Qaida’s affiliate, the Nusra Front. Most of the groups also are fighting the Islamic State.

But Obama was forced to reconsider after an acknowledgment by top U.S. officials that the Islamic State can’t be crushed without addressing its presence in Syria. He authorized the first U.S. surveillance flights of Islamic State targets in Syria and launched an effort to build an international coalition to fight the group through military, humanitarian and other means.

Senior administration officials insisted the strikes would not boost Assad because he has little sway in the Islamic State strongholds in Syria.

While Obama did not seek congressional approval for the expanding airstrikes, he did ask Congress to act on his standing request for lethal aid to arm moderate Syrian rebels.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., interrupted a series of floor votes Wednesday to announce that Obama’s request would be included in a budget bill that lawmakers are to vote on to keep the federal government operating beyond Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.

The vote was supposed to occur Thursday, but McCarthy announced that it would be postponed until next week because lawmakers are scheduled to receive a closed-door briefing from White House officials Thursday.

“I think I speak for my colleagues on both sides of the aisle when I say that we stand ready to listen and work with the president to confront this growing threat,” McCarthy said on the House floor to vigorous applause from lawmakers. “Now, given the severity of the situation and the need for all members to properly evaluate the president’s request, the House will postpone consideration of the continuing resolution which was originally scheduled for tomorrow.”

Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was pleased that Obama is seeking congressional approval.

“I think the American people realize the brutality … with the beheadings, I think that was a game-changer for a lot of Americans,” Engel said. “This plan does not put American boots on the ground. It does all the things that we said needed to be done. And it has to be done quickly. . . . Every single day, they’re getting bigger, they’re getting stronger and they’re acting like a government. They’re controlling things, they’re taxing, they’re selling oil. Now is the time to stop them.”

An exasperated Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he supports including Obama’s request in the Senate budget bill but worries that the plan might be too little, too late.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved such a plan in May 2013 on a 15-3 vote.

“It should have been done a year and a half ago,” Corker said. “Would it have worked much better a year and a half ago? Yes.”

This story was originally published September 10, 2014 at 8:43 PM with the headline "Obama to expand airstrikes to Syria, destroy Islamic State ‘wherever they exist’."