Defense secretary: U.S. ready to do more to help retake Ramadi

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday the U.S.is willing to assist the Iraqi army with more personnel and attack helicopters to help it fight Islamic State militants, especially in the battle to retake a key city in Iraq.

“The United States is prepared to assist the Iraqi army with additional unique capabilities to help them finish the job, including attack helicopters and accompanying advisers”, Carter said.

Democrats were mostly supportive of the administration’s strategy, but some challenged Carter in one aspect: why the administration hadn’t tried to establish a humanitarian no-fly zone – an undertaking both Carter and Selva said wasn’t worth the cost of risking confrontation with Syrian air forces or their Russian allies.

It is also the first time he spoke to the committee since the attacks in Paris, Beirut, against a Russian airliner in Egypt, as well as the deadly rampage in California by a radicalised Muslim couple.

Iraq’s security forces have seized a key foothold inside Ramadi and are preparing a final assault to clear remaining Islamic State militants out of the key western Iraq city, USA officials said Wednesday.

“This is an important step, but there is still tough fighting ahead”.

Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), who chairs the Armed Services Committee, pushed back on Carter’s statements, alleging that his logic did not make sense.

McCain estimated there are between 20,000 and 30,000 Islamic State fighters. “It’s time for Russian Federation to focus on the right side of this fight”.

An Iraqi brigadier general involved in the Ramadi operation said civilians who are able to move are being urged to head to Humayrah, a staging ground controlled by Iraqi forces on the southern edge of Ramadi.

Warren says Iraqi government forces are advancing slowly because they face booby traps and mines.

A USA defense official told AFP the secretary was referring to US Apache helicopters already in Iraq serving in a force protection role.

In its defence, the White House had argued that sending special operations forces, whose main mission was to train and support local forces, was different from large-scale, ground combat operations. “In the medium-term, by seeming to Americanize the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, we could well turn those fighting ISIL or inclined to resist their rule into fighting us instead”. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said, comparing it to not having intervened to prevent genocide in Rwanda during the 1990s.

Writing in Foreign Affairs magazine, she called this the start of a “new phase” of the US military campaign.

Ramadi is located roughly 70 miles west of Baghdad in Anbar province, where U.S. Marines were heavily concentrated during the initial occupation of the country.

“Some (militants) are going to stay and fight to the end”.

Commending the committee’s budget deal passed last month, the secretary asked members to release the hold on the final tranche of $116 million in the Syria equipping program.