President Obama and his top military chiefs can’t seem to agree on whether the Islamic State is contained, or where.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told lawmakers Wednesday that the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS, is not contained. Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress the same thing last week.
Their assessment would seem to contradict the commander in chief, who said in an interview last month that the extremist group has been contained by the U.S.-led military coalition in Syria and Iraq.
But the White House said Wednesday there is no contradiction.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Mr. Obama and his military advisers are “describing ISIL as contained tactically in areas that they have been in Iraq and in Syria, but strategically, concerned about their capacity to spread.”
“That is why, for example, the Department of Defense has taken airstrikes in Libya to take the ISIL leader off the battlefield in Libya,” he said.
SEE ALSO: San Bernardino shooters both radicalized before meeting each other: FBI
“We have had success undeniably in limiting the ability of ISIL to take over additional large patches of territory inside of Iraq,” Mr. Earnest said, adding that the military campaign “has been characterized by some back and forth.”
“The statistic that our intelligence community and our military often cites is that ISIL is no longer in control of 25 percent of the populated area that they previously had taken over,” he said. “That is evidence of ISIL being contained in Iraq and in Syria.”
Islamic State militants carried out a series of coordinated attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, killing 120 people. The group also in the past two months has claimed responsibility for bombing a Russian airliner in Egypt, killing scores of people in Beirut, and inspiring a Muslim husband and wife who killed 14 people last week in San Bernardino, California.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.