Defense Secretary Ashton Carter conceded Wednesday that the U.S. should have acted sooner to arm Iraqi Security Forces amid continuing chaos in the country stemming from ISIS.
“We … determined that our equipping of the Iraqi Security Forces had proceeded too slowly,” Carter said in testimony prepared for the House Armed Services Committee.
“This process was earlier sometimes delayed by bureaucracy in Baghdad, but occasionally also in Washington. That is why we are now expediting delivery of essential equipment and material, like anti-tank capabilities and counter-IED equipment, to the Iraqi security forces — including Kurdish and Sunni tribal forces,” Carter said.
Carter and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, delivered their outline of the Obama administration’s strategy for countering ISIS as it contributes to an increasingly unstable Iraq, 12 years after the launch of the Iraq War. They also discussed training Sunni tribes’ fighters as part of the decision announced last week to send 450 additional U.S. forces to the country.
Carter also said that the U.S. has not been receiving the help it needs from the Iraqi government, repeating a critique he made last month that Iraqi forces showed “no will to fight” during the fall of Ramadi to ISIS forces.
Dempsey, who is retiring shortly, said that a number of factors, including the various regional governments struggling to establish legitimacy, have contributed to the instability which has slowly dragged the U.S. back into the Iraq conflict.
But, Dempsey said, “Enduring stability cannot be imposed from the outside in. Stability must be cultivated from the inside out.”
