Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge rejected the White House’s characterization of its operation against the Islamic State as a painless air campaign, calling it ”disingenuous” to suggest that the approximately 1,600 U.S. special forces on their way to Iraqi battlefields ”are not in harm’s way.”
Ridge appeared on CNN Thursday to react to President Obama’s speech, which laid out a vague strategy to defeat Islamist fighters in Iraq and Syria. The first Homeland Security secretary felt compelled to push back against the president’s implication that an antiseptic air campaign — and no “boots on the ground” – will be enough to defeat the jihadists.
“It is disingenuous to say that the men and women that we’re going to send to Iraq are not in harm’s way,” he claimed. ”They’re not wearing sneakers. They’re probably going to help pre-position air strikes. They may be military advisers.”
“No commander-in-chief wants to send men and women in harm’s way,” Ridge continued. ”But don’t pretend those military personnel, these brave men and women are not going to be caught up in the middle of a violent battle with a violent, medieval, barbaric organization. It’s fiction. They are in harm’s way. There are boots on the ground.”
“This whole notion that somehow we can do this cosmetically from the air, and just rely on the Syrian moderates and the new coalition army that is going to hopefully resurrect itself under the new leadership in Iraq — that may happen,” he later added. “But let’s not kid ourselves about where these 1,500 men and women are going, and how perilous and dangerous their world is.”
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