Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is correct when he said Wednesday that the United States will not be able to recruit 24,000 Iraqi troops to battle Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists, Retired Army Gen. Paul Vallely told
Newsmax TV.
"It's a false premise," he told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth on Thursday. "Even to think right now, with no resolve or will of the Iraqi forces.
"What they need to be doing is supporting the Peshmerga in Kurdistan, the Free Syrian Army elements in Syria, and the Kurds," Vallely added. "Now you've got that Shiite-run government. They're not going to recruit into that other than their own militias that are supported now by Iran.
"You've got to back the right race horse over there — and that's the ones that will be our proxy forces, our boots on the ground," he said.
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In testimony before Congress on Wednesday, Carter called out Baghdad for not sending more recruits to American-run training camps.
Only about 7,000 trainees and 2,000 "anti-terrorist forces" have enrolled for training by U.S. forces, he told the House Armed Services Committee.
Vallely told Hayworth that one of the difficulties in Iraq is that the country is like a chessboard — involving so many countries, including Iran, Syria, and Russia.
"You look at the play then of Hezbollah and the Israel part of the chessboard there," he said. "It’s fractured, and I don't think it'll ever be the same."
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