The leader of the fight against the Islamic State said Monday that the carpet bombing strategy that’s been suggested by some Republican presidential candidates is “inconsistent” with American values.
While Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, said carpet bombing is not the answer, he said he has been tasked with coming up with a plan to accelerate the campaign against the Islamic State.
Asked if carpet bombing would speed up the fight, MacFarland said it isn’t an option for U.S. troops who are bound both by international laws and “a set of guiding principles.”
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t only matter whether or not you win, it matters how you win,” he told reporters at the Pentagon via video teleconference from Iraq. “So indiscriminate bombing where we don’t care if we’re killing innocents or combatants is just inconsistent with our values.
“Right now we have the moral high ground and I think that’s where we need to stay,” he continued.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and 2016 presidential candidate, has been a vocal advocate for seeing if “sand can glow in the dark” with a more active bombing campaign in the Middle East.
“You want to know what carpet bombing is? It’s what we did in the first Persian Gulf war; 1,100 air attacks a day, saturation bombing that utterly destroyed the enemy. Right now, Barack Obama is launching between 15 and 30 air attacks a day,” he said during last week’s Republican presidential debate.
MacFarland said carpet bombing isn’t an option for the U.S. in this fight, but did say that he had been tasked to find “accelerants” to regain total control of Iraq and Syria as soon as possible.
“I’ve been directed to come up with a series of proposals, some would call them accelerants to the campaign, that would allow us to increase the pressure on the enemy,” he said. “Now that doesn’t necessarily equate to boots on the ground, it doesn’t necessarily equate to American boots on the ground. It could be coalition boots on the ground, it could be a capability that doesn’t require any significant number of troops on the ground.”
He declined to provide any further details on what options he would present to the administration, noting that he wants forces fighting the Islamic State to benefit from the element of surprise.
