joint chiefs chairman general martin dempsey telling the senate armed services committee he s open to the possibility of u.s. ground forces fighting alongside the iraqi military. there s no intention for them to do so. i ve mentioned that if i found that circumstance evolving, i d change my recommendation. reporter: with isis beheading two americans and one british aid worker and threatening to kill another of its five western hostages, military officials say beyond expanding air strikes, more needs to be done to stop this terror group. defense secretary chuck hagel urging congress to fund president obama s plan to train and arm syrian opposition forces and iraq s military. this will not be an easy or a brief effort. it is complicated. we are at war with isil, as we are with al qaeda. reporter: speaker of the house john boehner saying he believes the president s strategy is sound but may not go far enough. if our goal here is to destroy isil, we ve got to do more than train a