America's anti-ISIS effort in Iraq has been "under-resourced and over-regulated," and U.S. soldiers should march with Iraqi forces to avoid "failure" now
— or more boots on the ground later, retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden tells
Newsmax TV.
In a panel discussion Thursday led by "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth, the former head of the CIA and NSA said the Army's retiring chief of staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, made the case perfectly at his final news conference Wednesday.
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"If we find in the next several months we're not making the progress that we have, we should probably absolutely consider embedding some soldiers and see if that will make a difference," Odierno said, according to
Stars and Stripes.
"That's as close as you get in the American system of having an American military officer on his way out simply make the point that 'they didn't follow my advice,'" Hayden said.
"What Gen. Odierno was simply saying is we've been under-resourced and over-regulated in terms of what it was we're doing with our combat forces in Iraq… He's just pointing out the obvious military logic and he feels a bit more free to say it since he's going over the side in just a few days."
Col. Derek Harvey, director of the Global Initiative on Civil Society and Conflict, added the strategy would include putting "small teams, special operators and small support teams with the ability to call on-air support for the strikes to make those more effective."
"Folks in the Pentagon have known for some time if we're going to try to achieve results on the ground to turn this around, we were going to need to embed and improve the direct action capabilities of our special operation forces," Harvey said.
Hayden points out that embedding U.S. troops to back up "Iraqi units that remain somewhat wobbly… does put Americans more in harm's way."
"It's the price we have to pay," he said. "[N]ot doing this might mean failure or might mean an even greater commitment of American forces at some time in the future to avoid failure."
Hayden also said America's
use of Incirlik air base in Turkey "is a good new story when it comes to efficiency of airstrikes."
"The effectiveness of airstrikes is going to continue to depend on really exquisite targeting but there's an important point to make," he said. "We paid a very high price for that 10,000 feet of concrete because the Turks now are actively involved in bombing, not ISIS, but Kurds in northern Iraq. And that's an entirely different proposition … as part of a packaged deal to let us fly out of Turkey."
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