President Barack Obama will have to send more troops beyond the increase he recently announced, because the United States isn't winning in its battle against the Islamic State (ISIS), Sen. John McCain told "Fox & Friends."
Obama on Friday authorized up to 1,500 additional troops to serve in a non-combat advisory capacity in the ISIS campaign, joining the 1,600 U.S. service personnel already in Iraq. McCain said sending more troops was inevitable, because that was the only way to gain intelligence on ISIS.
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"Whether they're combat troops or troops on the ground — look, he's going to have to send more. We are not winning, and it's just a fact," the Arizona Republican said Monday. "We are going to have to have more boots on the ground, because the only way you can really identify targets is to have boots on the ground. You're going to have to have more trainers in there."
Obama's strategy to limit U.S. involvement to airstrikes and advising Iraqi special forces and Syrian rebel troops was a "failed policy," McCain said, because ISIS "continues to win." He credited the lack of a Status of Forces agreement after the Iraq War with the rise of ISIS, and predicted "we're going to see the same movie in Afghanistan" without a U.S. presence.
Since Obama took office in 2009, McCain said his policy to withdraw troops from the Middle East had caused a shift "in favor of the forces of radical Islam, forces of terror," which now directly threatened the U.S.
McCain is the co-author with Mark Salter of a new book, "13 Soldiers: A Personal History of Americans at War," which tells the stories of ordinary people who were pressed into service for the country and did amazing things.
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