Defense Secretary Ash Carter said today he expects a “seamless transition” as U.S. Special Operations Command and U.S. Central Command welcome new leaders.
Carter and Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were joined by Army Gen. Joseph L. Votel, Centcom’s commander, and Army Gen. Raymond A. “Tony” Thomas, Socom’s commander, at a news conference after the day of changes in Tampa.
Working closely with U.S. partners, Carter said, the two leaders will take the campaign plan to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and “execute with the precision and rigor we’ve seen from them on the battlefield.”
Since the campaign accelerated in October, the momentum has shifted from ISIL to the coalition and its partners on the ground, Carter said. He vowed to build on the momentum and increase the acceleration.
“President [Barack] Obama has been clear that accelerating the defeat of ISIL is his top priority,” the secretary said. “And I’m confident that as we create opportunities against ISIL, we’ll be able to seize them.”
Recommendations
In the coming weeks, military officials will make recommendations on the counter-ISIL acceleration to the president, Dunford said. This may mean more U.S. troops in the region doing different missions.
Any change will build on Iraqi plans to retake Mosul – now the largest city ISIL holds. The Iraqis have discussed the plan with U.S. and coalition leaders. The discussion now is “what enabling capabilities could we provide that would allow the Iraqi security forces and the peshmerga to maintain the momentum that we have started to see over the last couple of months,” Dunford said.
Maintaining the momentum is crucial, and the secretary will bring the recommendations to the president in the coming weeks.
Carter said the campaign against ISIL in Iraq and Syria is just one portion of the effort. ISIL also has launched attacks outside the area and is metastasizing in other regions, he noted.
“Europe has seen that already,” Carter said. “Obviously, we are concerned about that. I fully expect that we will be successful in Iraq and Syria at defeating ISIL. But there are metastases around the world and there's the homeland fight itself.”
Secrecy
Votel and Thomas were asked about secrecy in the campaign. “We certainly recognize the public needs to understand what's happening, and they need to understand where we're having progress. They need to understand what the status is of the things that we're doing in the name of our country,” Votel said. “But what we also are very keen to do is protect our approaches and provide our people on the ground a maximum opportunity to accomplish the missions that we're asking them to do.”
The new Centcom commander said this requires a delicate balance, and that he has been pleased with the way the Defense Department has been handling the issue. Thomas stressed that U.S. Special Operations Command is “absolutely committed to the accountability we have to the American people and the president of the United States.”
He, too, said he believes Americans “have a need to know what we're doing and that we're doing it in the right way, consistent with American values.”
Still, he said, he has concerns where the amount of information getting out starts to imperil the tactics and techniques employed, and more importantly, the people involved. “We've had a rash of true full-name disclosures here recently, which I don't see serving any purpose other than to put those people in jeopardy,” he said.