US Military Leadership in OPEN REVOLT Against Obama on Iraq

In a breakfast interview with the Defense Writers Group, Odierno said that “1,600 is a good start” and that “I don’t think there’s a rush, a rush to have lots of people in there now.” But he predicated that as operations accelerate against jihadist fighters from the Islamic State, military commanders will revisit U.S. troop levels. “Based on that assessment, we’ll make further decisions,” he said.

The Army’s chief of staff told reporters Friday morning that he warned Congress even before today’s vortex of crises that major troop cuts would bring “significant risk.” If sequestration resumes and the Army shrinks to 420,000 troops, he won’t be able to support the Pentagon’s defense strategy.
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“That was before we had [the Islamic State] and before the Ukrainian incursion,” Odierno said. “The risk has actually increased. The potential to have ground forces operating on multiple continents simultaneously causes me grave concern about the size of the military, and I think we have to review it.”


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Retired Gen. James Mattis told the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday that "you just don't take anything off the table up front, which it appears the administration has tried to do."

He added, "Specifically, if this threat to our nation is determined to be as significant as I believe it is, we may not wish to reassure our enemies in advance that they will not see American 'boots on the ground.' "

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, similarly told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday that he could recommend deploying combat forces, should the evolving fight call for it.

"If we reach the point where I believe our advisers should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I will recommend that to the president," Dempsey said.

ZAGREB, Croatia — The U.S.-led military campaign plan to retake Iraqi territory held by ISIS calls for attacking the extremists from several directions simultaneously, and its success depends on getting more Arab help, the top American military officer said Sunday.

"We want them to wake up every day realizing that they are being squeezed from multiple directions," Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters, referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham.

"If we can get ISIL (ISIS) looking in about five different directions, that's the desired end state," he added in an interview with reporters traveling with him to Croatia from Lithuania, where he discussed Iraq and other issues with his NATO counterparts.

Dempsey stressed the importance of gaining more Arab participation in the U.S.-led effort, suggesting that without it the military campaign might not move to its next phase. He called wider Arab participation a prerequisite for President Barack Obama's approval of the military campaign plan. Obama was briefed on the plan last week but has not okayed it.