Obama: US lacks strategy to train Iraqis to fight IS

Associated Press

ELMAU, Germany

Acknowledging military setbacks, President Barack Obama said Monday the United States still lacks a “complete strategy” for training Iraqi forces to fight the Islamic State. He urged Iraq’s government to allow more of the nation’s Sunnis to join the campaign against the violent militants.

Nearly one year after American troops started returning to Iraq to assist local forces, Obama said the Islamic State remains “nimble, aggressive and opportunistic.” He touted “significant progress” in areas where the U.S. has trained Iraqis to fight but said forces without U.S. assistance often are ill-equipped and suffer from poor morale.

IS fighters captured the key Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi last month, prompting Defense Secretary Ash Carter to lament that Iraqi troops lacked “the will to fight.” That was a strikingly negative assessment of a military that has been the beneficiary of billions in U.S. assistance dating back to the war started during the administration of U.S. President George. W. Bush in 2003.

Still, Obama indicated that simply increasing the number of Americans in Iraq would not resolve the country’s issues. The U.S. currently has about 3,000 troops there for train-and-assist missions.

“We’ve got more training capacity than we have recruits,” he said at the close of a two-day Group of Seven meeting at a luxury resort tucked in the Bavarian Alps.