Obama to meet with military leaders at the Pentagon on campaign against

President Obama (L) is flanked by military leaders as he delivers remarks after a briefing on USA efforts against the Islamic State (ISIS), at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., July 6, 2015.

But he cautioned that more work remains to be done.

“We are doing more in Syria from the air”, Carter said.

Mr Obama met more than 30 officials and national security advisers during his rare visit to the Pentagon. “And we will ultimately prevail”, Obama told the media following a meeting with Pentagon commanders.

“And that means that we’re going to have to pick up our game to prevent these attacks”, Obama said.

He said recent IS losses proved the group could be defeated and that the U.S. was now “going after” the IS leadership in Syria.

He wants USA troops to deploy outside training bases with Iraqi troops to advise them in battle and to call in airstrikes.

He restated statistics heard from Pentagon officials that there have been 5,000 coalition airstrikes and that ISIS has lost 25 percent of the populated areas it controlled. Peshmerga forces are stationed north, east and west of Iraq’s second largest city Mosul, which is now under ISIL control.

But Obama also acknowledged the obvious: the campaign against ISIL is slow moving.

Secretary Carter has said the small number is due to a hard vetting process partnered with the requirement that those trained must be willing, at least initially, to exclusively fight Islamic State forces rather than the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The strategy harnesses all elements of American power including military, intelligence, diplomatic, economic development, “and perhaps most importantly the power of our values”, Obama said.

“His rhetoric doesn’t match reality”.

A spokesman from Speaker of the House John Boehner’s, R-Ohio, office said, “A speech isn’t a strategy”.

“ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple”, he has said. “It can be, and must be, defeated”. The president also said the U.S. would continue to crack down on Isis’s finance operations worldwide.

Understand that these are all distinct military operations with their own objectives, combination of coalition partners, and rules of engagement, and that this data is challenging to compile.

“Meanwhile we continue to ramp up our training and support of local forces that are fighting ISIL [Islamic State] on the ground”.

Obama said more needed to be done to train government forces and Sunni tribal fighters in Iraq, as well as moderate Syrian rebels.

But Obama cautioned the fight would likely face “setbacks”. “This is a long term campaign”.

He took questions from the press – an unplanned decision – and defended his threat to veto the defense bills now being pushed by Congress. It’s main weapon, he said, is fear.

“You’ll note I’ve now been president for six and a half years, and we’ve had some wrangling with Congress in the past”.

All the same, Obama appeared to stick by his veto threat.

The latest violence blamed on BokoHaram resulted in the deaths Sunday of more than 60 Christians and Muslims, including some at a mosque in Jos who came to hear SaniYahaya, an Islamic cleric who preaches peaceful coexistence between the faiths.