Obama is setting the stage to blame the Republican Majority for putting boots on the ground.
Via Defense News
President Barack Obama has invited the head of the US Central Command to brief congressional leaders at the White House on Friday afternoon — the first step toward updating the rules for the authorization to use military force (AUMF).
Gen. Lloyd Austin will give a presentation “on how our fight against [Islamic State] is proceeding,” Obama said in a press conference to discuss the Republican party’s Nov. 4 victories across the US.
Responding to a question about his plans to take a fresh look at the AUMF that was passed just a week after the 9/11 attacks, Obama said “the idea is to right-size and update whatever authorization Congress provides to suit the current fight rather than previous fights.”[…]
peaking earlier in the afternoon in Manhattan, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said US troops will likely be required to stay in Iraq to train the local army “over the next several years.”
Dempsey also admitted that when the last American vehicles crossed over the Kuwait-Iraq border in December 2011, key parts of the Iraqi force weren’t fully trained.
Going against the usual line from the White House and Pentagon that the United States left behind a fully functioning Iraqi Army, Dempsey said US forces were not able to finish training the Iraqis on “logistics, intelligence, close-air capability” by the end of 2011, and that Iraqi forces did not have enough lift capability to resupply their forces in the field.