Senators call for 20,000 more troops in Syria and Iraq
By Reuters
| Sunday, Nov. 29, 2015, 8:54 p.m.
BAGHDAD — Two senior senators called Sunday for Washington to nearly triple military force levels in Iraq to 10,000 and send an equal number of troops to Syria as part of a multinational ground force to counter Islamic State in both countries.
Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham criticized President Obama's incremental Islamic State strategy, which relies on airstrikes and modest support to local ground forces in Iraq and Syria, and said the need for greater U.S. involvement was underlined by this month's Paris attacks.
“The only way you can destroy the caliphate is with a ground component,” said Graham who is seeking his party's presidential nomination. “The aerial campaign is not turning the tide of battle.”
McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently proposed intervention in Syria by a European and Arab ground force backed by 10,000 U.S. military advisers and trainers.
He and Graham said during a visit to Baghdad that U.S. personnel could provide logistical and intelligence support to a proposed 100,000-strong force from Sunni Arab countries.
Graham said special forces would be included.
Obama last month ordered the deployment of dozens of special operations troops to northern Syria to advise opposition forces in their fight against Islamic State.
U.S. counter-terrorism experts have warned that deploying ground troops risks backfiring by feeding Islamic State's apocalyptic narrative that it is defending Islam against an assault by the West and its authoritarian Arab allies.
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