US bombers hold fire in Iraq, Syria due to lack of intel
Nearly 75 percent of US military aircraft targeting ISIL positions in Iraq and Syria returned to base without firing any weapons in the first four months of 2015 because of a lack of intelligence on the ground, according to a report.
In recent weeks, many former and current military and intelligence officials have raised concerns about President Barack Obama’s strategy in pushing back the ISIL terrorist group, including his refusal to deploy combat troops on the ground.
They argue that US forces are needed on the ground in Iraq to provide intelligence to military pilots taking part in bombing sorties, The Washington Times reports.
Without ground support, said a retired Navy helicopter pilot, “It’s almost impossible for pilots to designate between [ISIL] fighters and coalition fighters.”
“As long as the body politic or president or whoever is making decisions absolutely refuses to put American air controllers on ground, essentially pilots are flying with one eye closed,” Commander Christopher Harmer told The Times.
Last September, Obama announced an open-ended military air campaign to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the ISIL forces in Iraq and Syria by enlisting the support of scores of allies.
Of the 7,319 sorties the US military conducted over Iraq and Syria in the first four months of this year, only 1,859 flights — roughly 25 percent — dropped a bomb on an ISIL target, according to US Air Force Central Command.
“It’s more important for us to accurately target the enemy with a high degree of precision in order to minimize civilian casualties than it is to strike with such speed or force that would risk disenfranchising the very population we’re there to protect,” Cmdr. Harmer said.
Key US lawmakers have been citing the fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi to ISIL and the group’s recent gains in Syria as the latest signs that Obama’s strategy to defeat the terror network is failing.
The US and its regional allies, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have been supporting what they call moderate militants fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Many of those militants, who were trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012, later joined the ISIL terrorist group, according to several reports.
HRJ/HRJ
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