Obama admin. effort to arm, train anti-ISIS Syrian rebels a dud

Pentagon chief Ash Carter admitted to lawmakers Tuesday that the U.S. effort to train 5,000 Syrian rebels to battle ISIS has thus far yielded just 60 fighters.

"I said the number 60, and I can look out at your faces and you have the same reaction I do, which is that that's an awfully small number," Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Carter's admission of a dysfunctional training process exacerbated congressional concerns over the effectiveness of a key program designed to avoid sending U.S. ground troops into Syria. Congress voted last September to train and arm a local fighting force to combat the ISIS terrorist group, also known as ISIL.

Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain blasted the Obama administration for such a meager effort after months of funding provided to the Pentagon.
"It's not that we're doing nothing," McCain said. "It's that there is no compelling reason to believe that anything we are doing currently will be sufficient to achieve the president's long-stated goal of degrading or ultimately destroying ISIL, either in the short term or the long term."

Carter blamed the low numbers on a “rigorous” vetting process that includes ensuring the fighters are committed to combat ISIS’ Islamic radicals, as opposed to the Assad regime, and that they pass a counter-intelligence screening to ensure they were not planted into the program by ISIS.

Some 7,000 volunteers are waiting to make their way through the system.
Defense officials say they hope to train 3,000 by the end of the year and 5,400 by next May, but lawmakers noted that timeline is looking increasingly unlikely.

McCain is a strong supporter of Carter but he nonetheless targeted the defense secretary for scathing criticism, and the Arizona Republican called President Obama “delusional” for making comments at the Pentagon on Monday that claimed recent progress against ISIS.

McCain disparaged the Pentagon for delaying decisions on what military support to provide the Syrian rebels once they are in the field. The fighters have been told that plans will be put forth at a later date.
"Well, that's of small comfort to those people you're recruiting now, that that decision will be made later on," McCain said tersely.
"… So you're recruiting people and not telling them that (we’re) going to defend them because you haven't made the decision yet, and yet you want to train them quickly and send them in."

Meanwhile, the fight against ISIS in Iraq is also not going well. The training of Iraqi security forces has been slowed by a lack of people to train due to sectarian divisions across Iraqi. Carter told the Senate panel that Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi is working to engage the Sunni and Kurdish communities to add more forces to the training pipeline.

"We expect them to grow, we hope they grow," Carter said. "But what we need from the Iraqi government is the enrollment of Sunnis in the Iraqi security forces and the commitment of the Iraqi government to pay them, to equip them with our help."