The Pentagon has prepared a list of options to accelerate the counter-Islamic State campaign that will be presented to incoming Defense Secretary James Mattis as soon as he takes office, officials confirmed Wednesday.
“My job is to share options the next leadership team can choose and identify the risks and opportunities associated with those options,” said Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Dunford, the nation’s top military officer and senior adviser to both the president and the Joint Chiefs, was speaking to a group of reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where he is attending a meeting of the alliance’s military committee.
Pentagon officials say the options were drawn up weeks ago, and include some already presented to and rejected by President Obama.
Dunford provided no details about his specific recommendations, but the Journal cited other military officials as saying the plans do not include any options for deploying a large U.S. ground combat force to Syria or Iraq.
At the Pentagon, officials were tight-lipped about the options. “I won’t speculate on what will happen after Jan 20,” said one senior official.
President-elect Trump said during the campaign that he wanted a new plan to defeat the Islamic State within 30 days of his inauguration, and Dunford confirmed he met last week with members of the incoming national security team, included Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
Dunford said the new options would be focused on making sure that after Mosul falls to Iraqi government forces, Syria doesn’t become a haven from which the Islamic State would continue attacks into Iraq.
That would involve ensuring that Islamic State fighters cannot move back and forth over the Iraq-Syria border.
