In a series of television
interviews Secretary of State John Kerry had appeared to be reluctant to
term the expansion of US operations against IS in Iraq and Syria as
"war."
But pressed to clear
up doubts about how President Barack Obama sees the conflict, the White
House and Pentagon left little doubt.
"The United States is at war
with ISIL in the same way that we are at war with Al-Qaeda and its
Al-Qaeda affiliates all around the globe," said White House spokesman
Josh Earnest.Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said that the US was not fighting the last Iraq war and used similar language to Earnest..................................
"But make no
mistake, we know we are at war with ISIL in the same way we're at war
and continue to be at war with Al-Qaida and its affiliates," he said.
Obama is scheduled to be
in Tampa, Florida Wednesday to receive a briefing from top commanders at
US Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East.
In
interviews on Thursday, as Kerry toured the Middle East building an
anti-IS coalition, he was reluctant to use the term "war" in referring
to the US campaign, telling people not to indulge in "war fever."
"We're
engaged in a major counterterrorism operation, and it's going to be a
long-term counterterrorism operation," Kerry told CBS News."I think 'war' is the wrong terminology and analogy but the fact is that we are engaged in a very significant global effort to curb terrorist activity," Kerry said.
- 'Different' from last war -
The dispute over
wording may seem trivial when American planes and drones have been
pounding Islamic State targets in Iraq for weeks in more than 160
operations.
But it indicates the administration is skittish about
using language that could alarm Americans weary of years of foreign
conflict and who embraced Obama's vow to "end" the US wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq during two presidential election campaigns."The first thing that's important for people to understand is the president has made clear how the strategy that he is pursuing in Iraq and Syria to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL is different than the strategy that was pursued in the previous Iraq War," said Earnest on Friday.
Obama's new strategy, announced in a prime-time televised address on Wednesday, expands US air strikes in Iraq against IS and envisages new action against the group in Syria.
In addition, Obama plans to train "moderate" Syrian rebels to take on IS and to reconstitute the Iraqi army, parts of which fled an IS blitzkreig across northern and western Iraq.
But he has insisted
that there will be no deployments of US ground troops in the operation
-- especially none that would recall the vast US land armies that were
targeted by insurgents in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The
debate over the word "war" is only the latest verbal kerfuffle to hamper
Obama's attempts to clarify his increasingly under-fire foreign policy.Two weeks ago, the president sparked a political storm by admitting he did not "yet" have a strategy for combating IS in Syria after the beheading of two US journalists.
Critics also accused the administration of seeking to "manage" the problem of Al-Qaeda rather than seeking to decimate it.
On Wednesday, Obama said that his goal was to "destroy" IS.
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