President Barack Obama's decision to send 450 American trainers to help Iraqi forces battle Islamic State terrorists proves both that his administration has made mistakes regarding the jihadist group and that the Iraqi soldiers are unable to secure victory on their own, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra told
Newsmax TV.
"Clearly, we've made mistakes over the last number of years in pulling out completely," Hoekstra told "The Hard Line" host Ed Berliner on Wednesday.
"The second thing is that, even with all the dollars and the training that we have invested into the Iraqi Armed Forces, they are incapable, unprepared and perhaps unwilling to carry the fight to ISIL that will enable them to be successful," he said, referring to the Islamic State by one of its two acronyms, ISIS and ISIL.
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"It's both of those," Hoekstra added. "There's a lot of reasons why we've seen the kind of failure that we're seeing in Iraq today."
Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Scott Mann agreed, adding that "until we start working with the Sunni tribes — we can work with that Shiite-dominated military all day long — it's not going to make a difference.
"There's too much of a divide between those two ethnic groups. We have to work with the Sunnis as well."
But the problem there, Mann told Berliner, is that the U.S. is developing its ISIS strategy based on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Frankly, we've got a lot of other models — like Colombia, Philippines, El Salvador," he said. "We need to step back and look at other small works where we've done a smaller footprint," where the U.S. has expended "less blood, less treasure, longer time, bottom up and top down, building capacity.
"This is going to be a generational thing," Mann added. "It will not be fast, but we can do it."
Hoekstra countered, however, that the real problem with destroying ISIS is the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad that took hold after the U.S. pulled out.
"The Sunni tribes are willing to be on the front lines, but Baghdad has withheld training, weapons, ammunition for them to be part of the security apparatus, to protect Iraq — and now they're not in a position to repel ISIL," he said.
"There's a model out there that talks about integrating the whole country — arming the Kurds, arming the Sunnis, leaving the Shiites to dominate the government and Iraq to take care of the Shiite portions — but the Sunni and the Kurds have demonstrated an ability and a willingness to fight.
"The Baghdad government is slowing down the training and the equipment that they need," Hoekstra said.
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