Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on Wednesday accused President Obama of using tactics from the failed Vietnam War to fight the Islamic State in the Middle East, including a lack of support for effective airstrikes and relying on body counts to gauge success.
McCain’s stinging remarks on the Senate floor came just a few hours before the White House was expected to announce the addition of several hundred military advisers in the Middle East. McCain openly mocked that pending announcement by saying none of them would do the job that’s needed to be done in the fight against the terrorist group.
“It is so reminiscent of another war, another time many years ago, where under then-Secretary of Defense McNamara, this same kind of strategy prevailed,” McCain said, referring to Robert NcNamara, the defense secretary under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
“We’re going to send some more, 400 more people, maybe to staff up their headquarters, I don’t know,” he said. Instead, he argued again that the U.S. needs more special operations forces on the ground to direct airstrikes against the Islamic State, and said most of the air combat missions today are returning “without dropping a weapon.” McNamara relied on thousands of advisers during the Vietnam War.
McCain, famous for being a prisoner of war in Vietnam, also hit the Obama administration for relying on body count statistics as a sign of success, a strategy that McNamara also employed. This month, a U.S. official said 10,000 Islamic State fighters had been killed, but McCain said that statistic ignored the growing size of the terrorist group’s fighting force.
“The bragging about killing 10,000 ISIS [troops], they forgot to mention that there are more coming in they are killing,” McCain said. “Also, again reminiscent of the days of the Vietnam War where body count seemed to be the criteria.”
Criticisms of Obama’s strategy have intensified over the past few weeks as the Islamic State has gained territory. Plans by the White House to increase the number of advisers is already being seen by some as an admission that Obama’s plan is failing. But McCain said the White House has yet to take the tougher steps needed to fix the situation.
“This is incrementalism at its best or worse, depending on how you describe it,” McCain added.
