McCain: U.S. airstrikes in Iraq won't stop militants
The senator says it shows a "fundamental misunderstanding of the threat," the New York Times reports.
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McCain says U.S. airstrikes in Iraq can't stop Islamic State: NY Times
19 hours ago
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Raw: Iraqi Airstrikes Target ISIS Outposts
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
Republican U.S. Senator John McCain said on Saturday that President
Barack Obama's limited military action against Islamic State militants
in northern Iraq showed a "fundamental misunderstanding of the threat,"
and called for strikes against the group's positions in Syria, The New
York Times reported.
Obama on Thursday authorized the U.S. military to make airdrops of humanitarian assistance to prevent what he called a potential "genocide" of the Yazidi religious sect in Iraq and conduct targeted strikes on Islamic State fighters who have been seizing territory in northern Iraq, a limited operation to protect Americans working in the country.
"The stated purpose - stated by the president - is to save American lives, not to stop ISIS, not to change the battlefield, not to stop ISIS from moving equipment farther into Syria to destroy the Free Syrian Army," McCain said, referring to the Islamic State by one of its acronyms.
"Obviously, the president of the United States does not appreciate this is not just a threat to American troops on the ground or even Iraq or Kurdistan. This is a threat to America," he said.
McCain, an influential Republican voice on foreign policy, said he would favor sending combat air controllers into Iraq to identify potential targets for airstrikes as well as rushing heavy military equipment into Arbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, the paper said.
He also said he believed the U.S. airstrikes must extend into "ISIS-controlled territory in Syria," the New York Times said.
The
Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot, controls large parts of Syria and
northern Iraq. It has been one of an array of forces fighting the
government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's three-year-old civil
war, but has also clashed with other anti-Assad forces.
The
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates that the
Islamic State controls about 35 percent of Syrian territory, although
much of that is desert.
McCain
said the Islamic State "has erased the boundary between Iraq and
Syria," yet Obama "has failed so far to even mention Syria," according
to The New York Times, which said the Arizona senator was speaking by
telephone from Vietnam.
(Reporting by the Washington Breaking News Team, editing by G Crosse)
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