White House spokesman Josh Earnest insisted Tuesday that the decision to deploy troops to Iraq and Special Forces units to Syria doesn’t mean the Obama administration has moved into a phase of “enduring combat operations.”
That phrase is what the administration used to describe the situation it inherited in Iraq, when 144,000 U.S. troops were on the ground there. Obama pledged a different strategy and his deployments to Iraq and Syria reflect that, Earnest said.
The phrase “enduring offensive combat operations” is what the administration used to describe first invasion of Iraq, Earnest said. “Our strategy is a lot different — any impartial description of Obama’s strategy” would conclude that, he said.
There are 4,000-5,000 U.S. forces in Iraq and approximately 500 in Syria, but neither group is there to directly engage the enemy, Earnest explained. Their mission is focused on building capacity to help local forces fight for themselves.
“That is a very different mission than the deployment of thousands of U.S. troops on the ground who are responsible for seeking out and directly engaging the enemy,” Earnest said. “That’s not the mission of the much smaller number of forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria, he said.
The question of what the administration means in dubbing its current effort “Operation Enduring Freedom,” and how that differs from “enduring offensive combat operations” is being raised as more troops deploy to the region and a Navy SEAL was killed Tuesday in Iraq.
U.S. troops are there to help local forces fight the self-proclaimed Islamic State themselves, Earnest said. Even so, their mission is dangerous, he said.
The SEAL who died was not in a combat mission, but in a dangerous situation, like his fellow service members, Earnest said. Their role is not to directly engage in combat but they are equipped for combat if they find themselves in such a situation, Earnest said.
