{"id":58757,"date":"2020-08-12T18:37:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T18:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2020\/08\/12\/centcom-boss-expects-a-long-term-troop-presence-in-iraq\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:54:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:54:37","slug":"centcom-boss-expects-a-long-term-troop-presence-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/news\/pentagon-congress\/2020\/08\/12\/centcom-boss-expects-a-long-term-troop-presence-in-iraq\/","title":{"rendered":"CENTCOM boss expects a long-term troop presence in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the U.S.-led campaign to defeat ISIS<\/a> settles into its seventh year, the head of U.S. forces in the Middle East is considering what that effort will look like down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the physical caliphate lost its territory in March 2019, the jihadi group still remains a threat and troops remain on the ground in Iraq and Syria<\/a> supporting Operation Inherent Resolve<\/a>. That will likely be the case for years to come, Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, Central Command\u2019s leader, said Wednesday during a talk with the U.S. Institute of Peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt some point, we do want to get smaller there,\u201d he said. \u201cI just don\u2019t know when that\u2019s going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the Iraqi government has made moves toward calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops, they have not acted on them in any formal way to push out the roughly 5,000 troops still there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, McKenzie said, the coalition-controlled parts of western Syria can continue to physically fend off ISIS with the help of about 400 U.S. troops, according to figures released late last year but there is no clear replacement for a U.S. presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no viable military solution to the conflict in Syria,\u201d he said. \u201cOnly a political settlement can end the violence and address the underlying conditions that fracture the country and allowed ISIS to take hold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The statement is almost verbatim the rhetoric the Defense Department has used when discussing a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, which began in 2001 and saw a glimpse of a drawdown in 2014. Since then, the Taliban has regained ground and an offshoot of ISIS has established itself, as Taliban, Afghan and U.S. State Department officials have tried their hands at a peace agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that case, the conditions are that Afghanistan never again become a training ground for al-Qaida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After combat troops withdrew from Iraq in 2011, eight years after the initial invasion, the vacuum allowed ISIS to flourish, changing the conditions for a U.S. withdrawal to a similar goal \u2015 that the Iraqi government can successfully control an insurgency on its own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, western Syria is controlled by that country\u2019s central government, while a years-long civil war has seen the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces take control of the east. Withdrawal from that country would depend heavily on either side\u2019s ability to beat back ISIS on their own, further complicated by their internal power struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The goal in the near term is to transition from a tactical presence to one that supports local capacity, McKenzie said, so that Iraqi and Syrian forces are able to fend off not only a physical resurgence of ISIS as a caliphate, but any insurgent activity that goes along with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a report<\/a> released a year ago by the Defense Department, the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, ISIS had been gaining ground as movement, if not a territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis quarter, ISIS continued is transition from a territory \u2015 holding force to an insurgency in Syria, and it intensified its insurgency in Iraq,\u201d the report found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, McKenzie said, it\u2019s his belief that ISIS will continue to try to amass territory, and a coalition troop presence will be necessary to keep that from happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key to that effort will be sending home tens of thousands of ISIS fighters and their families, who are either imprisoned or staying in vast internal displacement camps. Al-Hol, the most notorious, houses 65,000 \u2015 mostly women and children \u2015 in squalid conditions, a perfect storm for radicalization among many who still sympathize with the terror group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe do have a fair amount of evidence that some of the individuals in that camp \u2026 are not just family members associated with ISIS proper,\u201d Air Force Maj. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, CENTCOM\u2019s operations director, said during the event, but that some of them are former ISIS fighters, including some women assumed to be wives of fighters.<\/p>\n\n\n\t