Iraqi security forces will probably not be able to recapture ground they have lost to Islamist militants without assistance, the top U.S. military officer said on Thursday.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that U.S. advisers now in Iraq were reporting that Iraq’s military was “capable of defending Baghdad but it “would be challenged to go on the offense, mostly logistically challenged.”
“If you’re asking me will the Iraqis at some point be able to go back on the offensive, to recapture the part of Iraq that they’ve lost, I think that’s a really broad campaign quality question,” Dempsey told reporters at the Pentagon. “Probably not by themselves.”
Iraq is grappling with an onslaught of Sunni Muslim militants from an al Qaeda offshoot who have seized large areas of northern and western Iraq and are threatening to march on the capital Baghdad.
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