Nancy Youssef and Kimberly Dozier, Daily Beast: Pentagon Walks Back Promise to Attack ISIS Capital ASAP
When the defense secretary promised an assault on ISIS’s capital in ‘weeks,’ the Pentagon reacted with a collective WTF. Defense officials say an attack is more like six months off.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s claim last week that the assault on Raqqa, the capital of the so-called Islamic State, was “within weeks” was a surprise to the commanders planning the war, who believe local troops will not enter the city for months, three defense officials told The Daily Beast.
One official told The Daily Beast the attack on the ISIS capital could be six months away.
“The broader question of retaking Raqqa and who does that is still open and we’re gonna continue to discuss that with all of our coalition partners,” Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, explained to reporters Wednesday.
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WNU Editor: It will take longer than the six month time frame that some officials are now talking about. Makes you wonder on what was U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter thinking when he first made this announcement .... U.S. Defense Secretary: 'Military Offensive To Retake Raqqa From The Islamic State Will Begin In Weeks' (October 26, 2016).
6 comments:
There are many reasons to to feign a imminent attack or an eventual attack. We have no way to know what sort of psy op is being administered!
I see whats going on here, and this is all wrong, Carter just baiting us with that they walks back move. They just want to know that do us in this blog/comment section have a plan for this operation, and if we have, they would just copy and execute it. So what we need to do is figure this thing out for them, because this is the only way we could save the Honor of the Obama administration. Who is in? James? Anyone?
mlacix,
The US administration is a ship that sails on the winds of opinion, constantly looking for a weatherman or Weatherman to know it's course for the day. Now in the ME it's sails are mostly reefed and it's rigging is slack and it knows no port of call.
mlacix,
I watched the rest of the JCS briefing video (I have a strange urge to hum the tune "power point ranger") and it was depressing.
It seemed as though the upper echelon mil guys are very worried that there is not enough political will to push the Mosul operation to a military success.
The Administration essentially produced an ad hoc coalition and seems to think it will roll to success on basically it's own accord, producing a situation with much upside potential with little political risk.
I know that earlier I was skeptical that any "Mosul Operation" would even appear, much less make it to the gates. In this I was wrong (underestimated the Administration's capacity on this), but the US is highly sensitive to political pain and this so called coalition is very fragile, all in all it could fall apart at a moment's notice.
Its ok putin will have it done by march.
James:
For me the coalition is US, the rest of the countries (Iraq, the militias and the Kurds are not included into the coalition) are doing basically nothing, and as long as CENTCOM is operational, the ongoing operations should remain to run smoothly. CJTF uploaded another briefing just two days ago, but I not yet got time to check it, dunno how much does it worth.
About the Raqqa operation, is a great riddle and a very difficult situation, just like or even bigger than Aleppo was a few weeks ago. I will keep it in my mind, who knows when the spark strike my mind.
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