National Defense Briefs – November 13, 2014

By W. Thomas Smith Jr.

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• Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Thursday, U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, the U.S. is “certainly considering” employing U.S. ground forces in direct combat action against ISIS in Iraq.
• Last week, the White House authorized a 1,500-man increase in U.S. forces in the fight against ISIS in Iraq. The increase will double troop-levels in Iraq. “I’m not predicting at this point that I would recommend that [Iraqi] forces in Mosul [Iraq’s second largest city] and along the border would need to be accompanied by U.S. forces, but we’re certainly considering it,” Gen. Dempsey said, adding, “We’re going to need about 80,000 competent Iraqi security forces to recapture territory lost, and eventually the city of Mosul, to restore the border.”
• U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said, “Coalition forces have launched 130 total airstrikes on ISIS, at a cost of $685 million,” as reported by WND (formerly WorldNetDaily). [see http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/congress-confronts-obamas-no-boots-tact-against-isis/]

• The Washington Post reports, “When U.S. Marines withdrew from Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province last month, they faced a task that was something like cleaning out a stuffy attic covering 10 square miles. In a series of multi-billion dollar decisions, the Marines and Pentagon planners decided what stayed, what went and what got tossed into the trash — or burned. [see http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/marine-pullout-offers-preview-of-what-us-leaves-behind-for-afghan-troops-1.313791]
• Also in an accompanying WP graphic illustrating major U.S. bases closed and open after 2014 – “At the height of the surge in 2011, there were more than 400 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) bases across Afghanistan, each with personnel numbering from the dozens to the thousands. Many of those small combat outposts have been destroyed and evacuated while the larger forward operating bases have been handed over to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).” [See http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/world/a-slow-steady-drawdown-to-10000/1451/]
• As we have reported, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham (also ISIS), the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and the Islamic State (IS). Many Arab-speaking people refer to ISIS as Daesh, an acronym for Al Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham (the Arabic translation of theIslamic State of Iraq and al Sham).
• And finally after our 239^th birthday Monday, here’s a bit of residual boasting. An article published in this week’s Forbes said, “Nobody’s perfect, but Marines come as close as you can get to perfect!” [see http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertpassikoff/2014/11/09/the-few-the-proud-the-marines/]

– W. Thomas Smith Jr. – a former U.S. Marine rifleman – is a military analyst and partner with NATIONAL DEFENSE CONSULTANTS, LLC. Visit him at http://uswriter.com.