White House Makes It Clear: US at War with ISIS After initially denying the U.S. is engaged in a war against Islamic State militants, the White House Friday backtracked and said that a war is underway, indicating it’s an extension of the ongoing campaign against Islamic extremists. “The United States is at war with ISIL in the same way we are at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. At the Pentagon, spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby echoed that assessment: “This is not the Iraq War,” he said. “But make no mistake, we know we are at war with ISIL in the same way we are at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates.” The militant Islamic group goes by the acronym ISIL as well as ISIS. The new talking points followed insistence by administration officials that President Obama’s new anti-ISIS strategy only amounts to a “counter-terrorism campaign.” “No,” the U.S. is not at war with ISIS, Secretary of State John Kerry told ABC News Thursday in Saudi Arabia. “We’re engaged in a counter-terrorism operation of a significant order. And counter-terrorism operations can take a long time, they go on. I think ‘war’ is the wrong reference term with respect to that.” Now, the Obama administration is pointing to that definition to say that we are still at war -- and that it will likely continue for years to come.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 10:37:51 +0000
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