brett bayer. on with what the president was mentioning about isis and the stepped up attacks without stepping up the number of u.s. troops involved, that would be akin to whack-a-mole. what will be the reaction a republicans. much the say. republicans have been critical there hasn t been more of a presence, more of an unleashing of special operations forces, for example to be out and forward controlling on some of those airstrikes. but the president was touting some 5,000 airstrikes against isis in syria and iraq. taughting success. touting territory taken back. republicans focus on what is not happening, and what they see could happen easily, for example, providing heavy weapons and machinery to the kurds. the president talking about a iraq policy has not developed to arm the kurd who are the
fighting positions tanks vehicles, bomb factories and training camps. we have eliminate on the thousands of fighters, including senior isil commanders. over the past year we have seen when he have an effective partner on the ground, isil can be pushed back in iraq, isil lost at the mosul dam. isil lost at mount sinjar, lost tikrit. in syria isil lost at kobani. it endured losses across northern syria includeing a key city. raqqa, its base of operations in syria. so here s reminders that isil s strategic weaknesses are real. isil surrounded by countries and
and to stem obviously the flow of those fighter back into our own countries. it continues to be a challenge in working together all nations need to do more but we re starting to see progress. we re going to continue to crack down on isil s elicit financing around the world. by the way if congress really wants to help in this effort, they can confirm our nominee for treasury undersecretary to lead this effort. this is a vital position to our counterterrorism efforts. nobody suggests mr. zuben is not qualified. unfortunately his nomination has been languishing up on the hill, and we need the senate to confirm him as soon as possible. meanwhile, we continue to ramp up our training and support of local forces that are fighting isil on the ground. as i ve said before this aspect of our strategy was moving too slowly, but the fall of ramadi has galvanized the iraqi
to do what is necessary to protect he home the homeland. one of the principles we all agree on, though, and i press folks pretty hard because in the conversations with milosevic tear advisers i want to make sure i m getting blunt and uncensored advice, but in every one of the conversations we have had, the strong consensus is that in order for us to succeed long term in the fight against isil we have to develop local security forces that can sustain progress. it is not enough for us to simply send in american troops to temporarily setback organizations like isil, but to then, as soon as we leave see that void filled once again with extremists. it is going to be vital for us to make sure that we are preparing the kinds of local ground forces and security
the president said these intensified strikes against isis will continue and that they are working. but that this will take time. scott brown the former senator from massachusetts on what he reads into all of that. takes time. no additional troops. maybe more intensified action. what are you to make? when i listen to the president and i others have this feeling of what could have been, what the president could have done help talks about the void that needs to be filled. that void could have been addressed when letted left iraq basically without any american fire power education or training. we didn t leave a transition force. a military force there to help the iraqi government. so, as a result of that void that i believe he created we now have what we have. isis is the size of new england. yes, we have had some recent obviously successes but overall, they re still moving