Hours later, President Obama’s spokesman performed more verbal gymnastics on the subject, saying troops are sometimes in a combat “situation” but not a combat mission, MI reported.
Mr. Gates, a Republican who served as Mr. Obama’s first Defense secretary from 2009 to 2011, said it’s a “disservice” that the White House can’t bring itself to say that U.S. troops are in combat against ISIS.
“I think that it is incredibly unfortunate not to speak openly about what’s going on,” Mr. Gates said on MSNBC. “American troops are in action, they are being killed, they are in combat. And these semantic backflips to avoid using the term combat is a disservice to those who are out there putting their lives on the line.”
The White House, which is fully invested in Mr. Obama’s legacy as the president who ended the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, seemingly proved Mr. Gates‘ point soon after he made his comments. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said that the 5,500 or more U.S. troops deployed in Syria and Iraq are often in danger, but were not sent there as ground combat troops on the scale of the Bush administration’s 2003 invasion, The Washington Times reported.
“While their presence in Iraq and in Syria is dangerous, and on occasion, our men and women in uniform have found themselves in combat situations that are dangerous, they have not been deployed to Iraq to wage combat on the ground against” ISIS, Mr. Earnest said.
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