The White House wanted to issue a report with President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night about progress fighting terrorists, but it seems the dog ate the administration’s homework.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest acknowledged Friday, a bit sheepishly, that the progress report claiming “momentum” against the Islamic State was being issued three days late.
“I’ll just be blunt with you,” he said. “This is a document that we had planned to release in the context of the State of the Union address, and because there was so much interagency and international coordination involved in putting it together, the deadline slipped a little bit.”
The report said the 65-nation coalition led by the U.S. “has intensified the fight to liberate ISIL-controlled territory in Iraq and Syria and has made significant progress in its campaign to degrade and destroy this abhorrent terrorist group.” ISIL is an acronym for the terrorist group.
The White House said Mr. Obama and his administration “remain fully committed to eliminating the threat posed by ISIL and will continue to pursue a strategy that strikes ISIL at its core, degrades its networks, and constrains its prospects for expansion.”
“We must be patient and flexible in our efforts; this is a multi-year fight and there will be challenges along the way,” the report said. “But we are united with our Coalition partners and are making progress together to degrade and destroy ISIL.”
Among the highlights, the report said 12 coalition countries have conducted over 9,500 air strikes in Iraq and Syria, including over 630 in support of the liberation of Ramadi by Iraqi security forces.
“These airstrikes have taken out over 3,450 ISIL vehicles and tanks, over 1,120 artillery and mortar positions, 1,170 oil infrastructure components to include tanker trucks, oil storage tanks, collection points, and well heads, and more than 13,500 fighting positions, checkpoints, buildings, bunkers, staging areas and barracks, including 39 training camps, in Iraq and Syria,” the report said.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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