The director of the CIA delivered a sobering reality check to Congress Thursday by admitting that despite nearly two years of bombing and billions of dollars, the Obama administration’s strategy to degrade and defeat the self-proclaimed Islamic State has failed to significantly reduce the group’s ability to sow terror around the world.
“Unfortunately, despite all of our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach,” John Brennan testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday.
Brennan’s bleak assessment before an open session was that while the U.S.-led coalition has made “important progress” and put the Islamic State on the defensive, the extremist group “remains a formidable adversary,” and its ability to inspire and direct attacks is relatively undiminished.
“The resources needed for terrorism are very modest,” Brennan testified, “and the group would have to suffer even heavier losses on territory, manpower and money for its terrorist capacity to decline significantly.”
At the Pentagon, spokesman Peter Cook insisted the Islamic State has suffered losses in territory, leadership, finances and its ability to communicate, but he also acknowledged that the Islamic State remains a serious threat.
“We share that assessment, but we also want to make clear that the military campaign against ISIL has shown results, continues to show results, and will going forward as well,” Cook said when he was read a portion of Brennan’s testimony by a reporter.
“This is not going to be easy, and we never said it would be,” he said.
Brennan acknowledged in his Senate testimony that the Islamic State was being squeezed militarily and financially, but said in response it had simply stepped up its efforts to strike outside of Iraq and Syria.
“As the pressure mounts on ISIL, we judge that it will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda,” Brennan said.
The CIA says the terrorist group now has a “large cadre of western fighters” who could serve as operatives for attacks in the West, and is gradually cultivating its global network of branches into a more interconnected global organization.
“The branch in Libya is probably the most developed and the most dangerous,” Brennan said, while its branch in Egypt has established itself as “the most active and capable terrorist group in all of Egypt.”
Brennan’s comments clash with the update Brett McGurk, President Obama’s special envoy to the counter-ISIS coalition, presented on Friday, and with remarks Obama made after meeting with his national security team on Tuesday.
Morale among the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s fighters “compared to where it was even four or five months ago, is plummeting,” he said then. “We’re seeing them execute their own fighters on the battlefield. We’re seeing them unable to move fighters around the battlefield. And we’re seeing the recruits fall off precipitously.”
McGurk said the coalition is steadily taking out ISIS leadership as well.
“And we are killing one of their senior or mid-level leaders once every three days now,” he said. “We’ve taken out about 100 just over the last few months alone.”
President Obama also claimed momentum, despite the emerging threat of unaffiliated but ISIS-inspired attacks such as Sunday’s massacre in Orlando, Fla.
“Since I last updated the American people on our campaign two months ago, we’ve seen that this continues to be a difficult fight, but we are making significant progress,” Obama said. “This campaign at this stage is firing on all cylinders. And as a result, ISIL is under more pressure than ever before,” Obama said. “In short, our coalition continues to be on offense; ISIL is on defense. And it’s now been a full year since ISIL has been able to mount a major successful offensive operation in either Syria or Iraq.”
“As ISIL continues to lose territory, it also continues to lose the money that is its lifeblood,” Obama said.
Nicole Duran contributed
