https://youtube.com/watch?v=o7GnnbZhNRU
Secretary of State John Kerry declined to get into specifics about what sort of help the U.S. could expect from other countries in its fight against the Islamic State, but he said there is one kind of assistance he is not seeking: ground troops.
In an interview airing on Sunday, Kerry told Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer, “We’re not looking to put troops on the ground.”
“There are some who have offered to do so,” he said, “but we are not looking for that at this moment anyway.”
“Do you really think you can destroy ISIL without troops on the ground?” Schieffer asked.
“There are troops on the ground that don’t belong to us — they’re called Syrian,” Kerry said, adding that the Obama administration plans to provide training and equipment, as well as air support, to those groups.
“I can’t tell you whether some other country in the neighborhood will or won’t decide to put some people in there,” Kerry said. “We know the United States is not going to do that.”
Some Democratic senators have come out against the administration’s plans with regard to Syria. Senator Joe Manchin (W.Va.) said last week that he could not support a strategy of training and arming Syrian rebels. And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), appearing on Face the Nation, said, “Certain strategies I don’t support: I don’t think arming the rebels in this instance is necessarily going to be productive.”