Obama: Large U.S. troop deployment against IS ‘a mistake’

Obama said putting large numbers of USA troops on the ground to combat the threat, however, would be “a mistake”.

He said the US would have to be prepared for a permanent occupation in Syria or Iraq if he sent in ground forces.

“There will be an intensification of the strategy we have put forward, but the strategy we have put forward is the strategy that will ultimately work”.

Just as U.S. President Barack Obama did at the G20 Summit on Sunday, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has sat down with Russian President Vladimir Putin for intense talks following the terror attacks in Paris.

Rhodes also tried to explain away Obama’s comments that the United States had “contained” ISIS. Obama believes the USA is better protected against these types of attacks – in part because of its intelligence capabilities, in part because of geography, and in part because of the number of homegrown jihadists in America relative to the swelling number in Europe.

“The people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism…they are parents, they are children, they are orphans”, Obama said. He said that while any refugees to the USA would undergo “rigorous” screening, his government would continue to accept them.

However, he offered no details about what the U.S. or its coalition partners might do to step up its assault against ISIS. That’s shameful. That’s not American.

While USA officials said Obama viewed the attacks in France as an act of war, they cautioned he had no plans to overhaul his strategy for dismantling the IS and said he remained staunchly opposed to an American ground war in Syria.

During the talks with world leaders, Obama said “the skies have been darkened” by the attacks in Paris.

They vowed to share intelligence, track border crossings and boost aviation security to halt the movement of jihadist fighters.

Obama said the killings across the center of Paris were a “terrible and sickening setback” in the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh.

Mr. Obama, rattled by prodding questions at a press conference Monday about whether his strategy for tackling the Islamic State had failed, lashed out at his critics over refugees.

“During these hard times, we will not succumb to Islamophobia”, he added.

Officials at the G20 summit in Turkey worked overnight and into the morning as they hammered out the wording of a paragraph in the final communique, due to be released early today. To be considered for US admission, refugees usually must be deemed “vulnerable”, a designation that includes widowed women, unaccompanied children, political targets of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and those with life-threatening medical conditions.

U.S. President Barack Obama gestures to journalists following a news conference at the end of the G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, Monday, November 16, 2015.

Obama met with several heads of states the summit, held at a Turkish resort on the Mediterranean. They voiced their plans to eliminate ISIS, who has taken responsibility for the Paris attacks, as well as the recent downing of the Russian MetroJet in Egypt that killed everyone onboard.