ISIL militants in a convoy drive into Iraq's Anbar Province, on January 10, 2014.

ISIL militants in a convoy drive into Iraq's Anbar Province, on January 10, 2014. AP Photo via militant website

ISIL Is Now a ‘Full Blown Army’ in Iraq

House lawmakers grilled State and Pentagon officials to find out why the Obama administration has failed to stop ISIL from carving up Iraq and Syria. By Ben Watson

During an often heated exchange on Capitol Hill, a State Department official told House lawmakers that the brutal extremist group the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, is no longer “simply a terrorist organization—it is now a full-blown army.”

“ISIL is worse than al-Qaeda,” said Brett McGurk, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Iraq and Iran. “ISIL is no longer simply a terrorist organization. It is now a full-blown army seeking to establish a self-governing state through the Tigris and Euphrates valley in what is now Syria and Iraq.”

McGurk’s appearance Wednesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee was his second this year on the growing extremist threat facing Iraq and in turn, the United States. 

“Since that last hearing, [ISIL] has done precisely what [the Obama administration] predicted it would: it has taken over most of Western Iraq, it has turned its sights on Baghdad, and it may be preparing to launch attacks against the United States,” said Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif. 

(Related: Hagel Declares ISIL Clear and 'Imminent Threat' to U.S.)

Since McGurk’s last appearance before Congress, ISIL has continued to plague Iraq with violence. In Baghdad late Tuesday, a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives at a checkpoint killing 31 and injuring another 58. ISIL militants claimed responsibility for the attack. More than 5,500 civilians have died in Iraq fighting this year alone, the United Nations said last week.

“We did see this coming,” said Royce, noting that the Iraqi government has been urgently requesting drone strikes against ISIL camps since August 2013. “And that makes it even more troubling that the administration didn’t do what was necessary to prevent [ISIL] from taking over such a large swath of Iraq.”

But McGurk pushed back against many lawmakers who have called for U.S. drone strikes to take out ISIL fighters as they proceeded south into Iraq from Syria.

“The first principle and the president’s policy is that we want to enable local actors to be able to secure their own space as best we can. That was also the desire of the Iraqi government,” McGurk said. U.S. surveillance flights have increased from one per month to now more than 50 per day, he added. “The information we have now on these networks is night and day from where it was in May when the request from the Iraqis first came in. And there is a significant risk, Mr. Chairman, of taking any military action without that level of granularity.”

Elissa Slotkin, Acting Principle Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, also cautioned against U.S. military action.

“There will not be an exclusively U.S. military solution to ISIL,” Slotkin said at Wednesday’s hearing. “Iraqis must do the heavy lifting.”

The interests of national unity and respect for the Iraqi constitution come before any considerations of military strikes, McGurk said, echoing Obama’s words from June.

The Obama administration’s Iraq policy, he explained, involves relying on the Iraqi government to work in accordance with its own constitution. He noted that the recent appointment of a new moderate Sunni speaker in Iraq’s parliament marked a promising turn toward securing the support of all the country’s political factions.

“They chose a speaker,” he said. “That kicked off a timeline for 30 days to choose a president. Once there’s a president, there’s a 15-day clock to name a prime minister. And then 30 days to form a cabinet.”

But lawmakers Wednesday didn’t appear to be terribly interested in the take that an Iraqi political solution be prioritized over a U.S. military one.

“[Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki] must go, and the sooner the better,” ranking member Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said, reflecting many lawmakers' impatience with the divisive Shiite leader.

“There is a recognition in Iraq that from the center out, you’re never going to fully control all of these [ISIL-controlled] areas, particularly given the capacity of ISIL,” McGurk said. “And there is also recognition that locals alone and tribal forces alone cannot defeat ISIL. They need the support and resources of the central state…The people do not want to divide into three different countries or states. There is no easy solution for that. When you game it out, the consequences are actually quite serious.”

(Related: Can Another ‘Anbar Awakening’ Save Iraq?)

Rep. Engel disagreed with that assessment, but McGurk replied that his face-to-face meetings last week with Kurdish leaders in Irbil confirmed their support for a unified Iraq.

“Given the ISIL threat,” Slotkin added, “the strongest single blunt to that threat would be a strong, capable federal government in Iraq that’s actually able to exert control and influence to push back on that threat.”

“The administration is just paralyzed, they don’t know what to do,” former Air Force pilot and Iraq war veteran Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. said. “Political solutions are not something that we can put in a microwave and expect to happen in a short amount of time.”

Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., expressed his skepticism over what some have called the Obama administration’s “soft” approach in Iraq. “Ms. Slotkin, we’ve been [in Iraq] for 12 years, we poured a trillion dollars into the country, we’ve lost precious men and women in fighting there,” Connolly said, continuing, “How does one achieve this strong, central, effective, functional government in Baghdad?”

That’s exactly what Iraqi lawmakers are struggling with right now, Slotkin answered. “And as they form their government, they will have some fundamental questions that they will have to answer about the future of their state,” she said.

“I hope you’re right,” Connolly replied. “But the skepticism expressed in this committee is very bipartisan.”

Rep. Albio Sires, D-N.J., asked what Baghdad and the U.S. can expect of an Iraqi army—four divisions of which dropped their weapons and ran in the face of advancing ISIL fighters—that appears to lack will or direction. McGurk assured him those leaders have all since been fired.

“I will not underestimate the extreme challenge here,” he said. “ISIL is a highly-effective, sophisticated military organization. It is far better than the al-Qaeda in Iraq that we fought. And in order for the [Anbar] awakening to really get moving in those days, it took a lot of effort on our part to degrade that network which then allowed the awakening and the tribal networks to really rise up and fight it. So I think it has to be taken in parallel. There will have to be some military pressure against ISIL; at the same there has to be a new government with political accommodations made to isolate ISIL from the population. They have to run in parallel to be effective.”

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.