Critics of the President Obama’s claim that the Islamic State is “contained” are continuing to make trouble for the White House, and forcing officials to explain Obama’s nuanced remark almost a month after he made it.
On Wednesday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., got Defense Secretary Ash Carter to seemingly disagree with Obama during a hearing. Carter said he agreed with Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, that the U.S. has “not contained” the Sunni militant group. Dunford said the terrorist group is contained geographically in the Middle East, but admitted that the group’s reach seems to be expanding.
Dunford’s comment seemed to conflict with Obama’s assessment, made hours before Paris attacks on Nov. 13, that the Islamic State was contained.
Hours after Carter spoke, White House spokesman Josh Earnest explained that the commander in chief and his top military lieutenants really are saying the same thing.
“It doesn’t directly contradict what the president said a couple of days ago,” Earnest said when asked about Carter’s remarks.
Obama “was quite clear about how it is a fact, one that Secretary Carter actually indicated that he did agree with, that ISIS is no longer making significant advances across territory throughout Iraq and in Syria,” Earnest said, referring to the president’s Nov. 13 interview.
“And that those advances had been contained, and in fact, rolled back in some key areas,” he continued. Obama also acknowledged “that there are significant challenges when it comes to controlling the spread of ISIL’s radical ideology, and the United States is engaged in a coherent strategy to confront that,” Earnest said, using the administration’s preferred acronym for the terrorist group.
“I think that Secretary Carter indicated that he agreed with the viewpoint that was put forward by General Dunford who, again, also said the same thing that the president did in describing ISIL as contained tactically in areas that they have been in in Iraq and in Syria, but strategically, concerned about their capacity to spread,” Earnest said.
After telling McCain that he agreed with Dunford, Carter said that the 65-nation, U.S.-led coalition is gaining ground against the Islamic State. “I think that we are building momentum against ISIL,” he testified.
McCain replied that perhaps the disagreement was a matter of semantics but that regardless of whether the Islamic State is contained within Iraq and Syria, and in control of less territory than a year ago, the group still has a base from which to wreck havoc.
“I guess the point is, Mr. Secretary, here we are with attacks on the homeland, the United States of America, we have not contained ISIL and we have no timeline … no plan, no strategy to retake Raqqah” and Mosul, McCain said, naming the two biggest cities controlled by ISIS and the heart of its “caliphate.”
“And I think it is pretty obvious to all that, as long as they have caliphate base, than they are able to orchestrate attacks such as they have successfully achieved in the last several weeks.”
