THE VIRULENCE OF ISIS: A pair of congressionally mandated Pentagon reports out this month paint a sobering picture of brutal Islamic State fighters who have been disrupted but not defeated and are on the rise in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.
The latest report from the Department of Defense’s lead inspector general — delivered to Congress Friday and released publicly yesterday — covers U.S. counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan and concludes that ISIS’ Afghan offshoot remains “a significant threat.”
Apart from the NATO-led Resolute Support mission, which aims to build up Afghan government forces fighting the Taliban, the United States has a separate mission dubbed “Freedom’s Sentinel,” which uses U.S. Special Operations Forces and “partner forces” to launch unilateral operations against al Qaeda and increasingly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – Khorasan or ISIS-K.
“[W]hile these operations have disrupted ISIS-K, the terrorist group will remain an enduring threat in Afghanistan, even if the Afghan government and the Taliban reach a political settlement,” the report concludes.
ISIS IN TRANSITION: A separate report from the same independent watchdog, released Aug. 6, reached a similar conclusion about the growing threat from ISIS in its birthplace in the Middle East and its continuing campaign of terror, which includes carrying out assassinations, suicide attacks, abductions, and arson of crops in Iraq and Syria.
“Despite the loss of physical territory, thousands of ISIS fighters remain in Iraq and Syria and are carrying out attacks and working to rebuild their capabilities,” writes lead Inspector General Glenn Fine. “ISIS remains a threat in Iraq and Syria. This quarter, ISIS continued its transition from a territory-holding force to an insurgency in Syria, and it intensified its insurgency in Iraq.”
POMPEO: ‘IT’S COMPLICATED’: “What we’ve always said is the caliphate’s been gone and that there’s always risk that there’ll be a resurgence, not just from ISIS. There’s risk from al Qaeda, other radical Islamic terrorist groups,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in an interview yesterday on CBS This Morning.
Asked directly by host Gayle King if ISIS is gaining strength, despite his previous comments that ISIS is “done and done,” Pompeo replied, “It’s complicated.”
“There are certainly places where ISIS is more powerful today than they were three or four years ago, but the caliphate is gone and their capacity to conduct external attacks has been made much more difficult,” Pompeo said. “We’ve taken down significant risk — not all of it, but a significant amount. And we’re very pleased with the work that we’ve done.”
HIGH ANXIETY: As the United States gets closer to sealing a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban, more of President Trump’s backers in Congress are warning of the perils of a premature pullout and “capitulation” to the terrorist group.
“We should not withdraw U.S. forces based on a political timetable that grants concessions to the Taliban and allows the terrorists to maintain safe havens from which they can plan and train for future attacks in the West. We cannot accept a deal that places America’s security in the hands of the Taliban,” writes Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney in an op-ed in the Washington Post.
“Agreeing to such a deal would not be ending a war, it would be losing it — to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State,” Cheney argues, echoing concerns of other Republicans, including South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham.
“Given the Taliban’s sordid history and ongoing violence, it strains credulity to believe it can be a partner for peace. The American people deserve to see the full text of any agreement the State Department is negotiating, including supposed counterterrorism assurances. If we are putting our security in the hands of the enemy who harbored al-Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks, the American people deserve to know why,” Cheney writes.
TRUMP: AFGHANISTAN IS ‘THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY OF TERRORISM’: In his media availability with Romania’s president yesterday, Trump indicated that he doesn’t fully trust either side in Afghanistan and made clear he’s anxious to get most U.S. troops out of the country.
“We’ve been a peacekeeper there in a way for 19 years, and at a certain point, you have to say that’s long enough. I go to Walter Reed and I see young men that step on a bomb and they lose their legs, they lose their arms. In some case, they lose both and their face on top of it and they’re living,” Trump said, while at the same time appearing to concede that a complete U.S. withdrawal could lead to a Taliban takeover.
“Well, that’s what we have to watch. And we’ll always have intelligence, and we’ll always have somebody there,” Trump said, “but that does seem to be the Harvard University of terrorism, OK. It seems to be. And we’ll always have somebody there.”
“Right now, what we’re doing is we’re negotiating with the government and we’re negotiating with the Taliban and we’ll see what happens from it, what’s coming from it. I will say this: The Taliban would like to stop fighting us,” he said.
Asked if the Taliban can be trusted to hold up its side of any peace deal, Trump replied, “Nobody can be trusted. Nobody can be trusted. In my world — in this world, I think nobody can be trusted.”
SEALING THE DEAL: Meanwhile, fresh from briefing President Trump last Friday, U.S. special representative Zalmay Khalilzad tweets that he is “back on the road again” to try to seal the deal with the Taliban. “First stop Doha where we will try and close on remaining issues. We’re ready. Let’s see if the Taliban are as well.”
Good Wednesday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Kelly Jane Torrance (@kjtorrance). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.
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HAPPENING TODAY: Another DoD IG report, released last month, is the subject of a 10 a.m. media teleconference by Wisconsin Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher. The heavily redacted declassified July 26 report uncovered $33 million worth of purchases by Army and Air Force personnel in 2018 in Chinese electronics, including household name brands like Lexmark, GoPro, and Lenovo, that are already banned by other federal agencies and open the door to hacks and spying of military personnel and facilities.
Gallagher will be joined by Roslyn Layton, co-creator of ChinaTechThreat.com, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and visiting researcher at Aalborg University.
ALSO TODAY: President Trump delivers remarks to the 75th annual American Veterans convention in Louisville, Kentucky, around 2 p.m.
HAPPENING TOMORROW: The Navy gets a new top officer tomorrow when Adm. Michael Gilday assumes command from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, who is retiring. The ceremony at the Washington Naval Yard is scheduled for 10 a.m.
TRUMP WANTS RUSSIA BACK IN THE G7: President Trump says it’s time to let Russia back into the club of major industrialized nations known as the Group of 7. It was the Group of 8 until Russia was kicked out for its annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
In Trump’s version of history, President Barack Obama orchestrated Russia’s exit because Vladimir Putin “outsmarted” him in Ukraine.
“President Obama didn’t want Russia in because he got outsmarted. Well, that’s not the way it really should work,” Trump said. “I think it’s much more appropriate to have Russia in. It should be the G8 because a lot of the things we talk about have to do with Russia. So I could certainly see it being the G8 again, and if somebody would make that motion, I would certainly be disposed to think about it very favorably.”
Trump will be attending the annual G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, this weekend, along with leaders from France, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT: Despite saying his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark was “not number one on the burner,” Trump announced on Twitter yesterday he’s postponing a planned meeting with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen because she’s not willing to deal away the strategic territory.
“Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
“The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!”
COUNTDOWN CLOCK IS TICKING: The United States may have withdrawn from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but it still expects Tehran to comply with key provisions. That was the message Secretary of State Pompeo delivered to the United Nations Security Council yesterday.
“We are already tracking very closely the JCPOA provisions expiring in October of 2020, namely the U.N. arms embargo and the travel restrictions on Qasem Soleimani,” Pompeo said in New York, referring to the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force. “The whole world is able to track them, too. We now have a countdown clock on the State Department’s Iran webpage. Time is drawing short to continue this activity of restricting Iran’s capacity to foment its terror regime.“
The United States says Western allies have 15 months to unify against Iran before the regime is free to buy and sell weapons under the 2015 nuclear deal.
‘BEST OF BREED’: Acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy says that for the United States to prevail over adversaries such as China and Russia, the Army can’t just be better than a single competitor, it needs to be the best overall, and that requires cloud computing.
“We emphasize the long-term pacing threat is China, so the capabilities you try to develop, the way you fight, I refer to it as ‘best of breed,'” McCarthy told reporters during a roundtable discussion yesterday. “You need to be good enough to beat everybody, not just A or B.”
The military has struggled to upgrade its decades-old computer systems to the cloud, which allows software and apps to run on networks instead of local computers. Cloud computing is expected to not only help the military run more efficiently but be a requirement for many of the technologies it wants to adopt in the future.
MARINE F-35 NOTCHES ANOTHER SUCCESS: The Marine Corps says an F-35 deployed on the USS Wasp successfully rehearsed a combat air patrol and fired an AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air missile as part of the exercise.
“This execution marked the first operational F-35B live-fire of the AIM-9X missile in the Indo-Pacific region while conducting blue-water flight operations,” said a statement from the Marine Corps. The missile was fired and flares dispensed out of an MV-22B Osprey.
“Our successful live-fire employment of the AIM-9X further exemplifies our preparedness to ‘fight and win’ against any adversary in any arena,” said Col. Robert Brodie, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit commanding officer.
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: Israel suspected of being behind strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq
New York Times: What ‘Victory’ Looks Like: A Journey Through Shattered Syria
Wall Street Journal: Syrian Government Captures Strategic Town in Last Opposition Stronghold
Reuters: U.S. Commander Says Cracks in Asian Alliances a Worry Amid North Korea, China Threats
Stars and Stripes: U.S. Prepared to Resume Nuclear Talks as Soon as North Korea Gives Word, Envoy Says
USNI News: Recent U.S., Russian Tests Part of New ‘Missile Renaissance’
Defense News: Space Command to launch Aug. 29
New York Times: Australia Is Third Country to Join U.S. in Patrolling Strait of Hormuz
Foreign Policy: Mattis’s Successor Signals He Wants to End the Pentagon’s Long Silence
McClatchy: As cancer kills another Biloxi Air Force reservist, his unit demands answers
Calendar
WEDNESDAY | AUGUST 21
8:50 a.m. South Orme Street, Arlington. Institute for Defense and Government Advancement 2019 Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems Summit with the theme “Defending the Skies: Cutting Edge Counter UAS Solutions.” Brian Harrell, assistant infrastructure security director at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, delivers remarks on “Developing Infrastructure That Can Meet Rapidly Developing Drone Threats.” www.idga.org/events-counteruas-usa
9:50 a.m. South Orme Street, Arlington. Institute for Defense and Government Advancement Multi Domain Battle Management Summit, with Army Brig. Gen. Johnny Davis, commanding general of the Army Joint Modernization Command, delivering remarks on “Modernizing Military Networks in Order to Transfer Information Quickly to Each Service.” www.idga.org/events-multidomainbattlemanagement
11 a.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. Hudson Institute discussion on “President Trump’s Maximum Pressure Campaign: Rally Allies and Rattle Iran,” with Fatima al-Asrar, co-founder of the Basement Foundation and former senior fellow at the Arabia Foundation; Brian Katulis, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Kylie Atwood, national security reporter at CNN; and Michael Pregent, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. www.hudson.org/events
THURSDAY | AUGUST 22
8:50 a.m. 900 South Orme Street, Arlington. Institute for Defense and Government Advancement Multi Domain Battle Management Summit, with Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Daniel O’Donohue, joint force development director for the Joint Staff, delivering remarks on “Changing the Nature of Warfare in Order to Integrate all Domains.” At 11:15 a.m., James Collins, deputy assistant commissioner for intelligence at Customs and Border Protection, and Phyllis Corley, director of the Office of Director of National Intelligence Advanced Campaign Cell, participate in a discussion on “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning to Enhance Human Decision Making in the Field Operations.” www.idga.org/events-multidomainbattlemanagement
10 a.m. Washington Navy Yard. Change of command ceremony as Adm. John Richardson is relieved by Adm. Michael Gilday as the chief of naval operations.
FRIDAY | AUGUST 23
7:30 a.m. 1401 Lee Highway, Arlington. Air Force Association Breakfast Series event with Gen. James Holmes, commander, Air Combat Command. events.r20.constantcontact.com
8:50 a.m. 900 South Orme Street, Arlington. Institute for Defense and Government Advancement Multi Domain Battle Management Summit, with Rear Adm. George Wikoff, deputy director of operations at the Joint Staff National Joint Operations Intelligence Center’s Operations Team Five, delivering remarks on “Synchronization Between all of the Service Branches for Enhanced Organization in Combat.” www.idga.org/events-multidomainbattlemanagement
9 a.m. 300 Army Navy Drive, Arlington. The Pentagon’s Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces meets for an all-day session.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“That does seem to be the Harvard University of terrorism, OK. It seems to be. And we’ll always have somebody there.”
President Trump, acknowledging there may be a need to maintain some form of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan even after a peace deal with the Taliban.
