US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-North Carolina) says only “American airpower” can “dislodge” militants from the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
“No one gave us a scenario where the safe haven they enjoy ... could be eradicated without some American force,” Graham said.
“Name a force that could dislodge these people and deny them their safe haven in the region that doesn’t include American airpower,” he added.
Graham, who just returned from a trip to Afghanistan with Republican Senator John McCain (Arizona), made the remarks following a Senate Armed Services Committee’s closed-door meeting with US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey on Tuesday.
McCain also emerged dissatisfied from the closed-door briefing, criticizing the administration of US President Barack Obama for having “no strategy” to counter the threat posed to the US by ISIL.
“They have no strategy, nor could they articulate a strategy to counter what our intelligence estimates say will be a direct threat to the United States,” he told reporters.
The Arizona Republican also said last week that the rise of the ISIL terrorist group in Iraq is “a failure of United States policy.”
“This didn’t have to happen. This is a failure of United States policy and, by the way, there still is none that I can discern, either a policy or a strategy that can handle this situation,” McCain said on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ on Sunday.
Iraq is currently witnessing a spate of violence which escalated after ISIL militants captured vast swaths of territory across northern and western Iraq.
A recent Daily Beast report has shown that the White House ignored for months repeated warnings by both the Iraqi government and US intelligence agencies and officials about the rising threat from ISIL militants.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has said Washington’s regional allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar are responsible for the security crisis and growing terrorism in his country.
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