WASHINGTON
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that the countries that join the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant would publicly announce their roles at the U.N. General Assembly meetings to be held next week in New York City.
Kerry's remarks came as he briefed the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee about President Barack Obama’s strategy to fight ISIL.
"We know the players. Our focus now is in determining what each country's role will be and how to coordinate those activities for success," Kerry said while ruling out the option of U.S. troops on the ground.
"This is not the Gulf War in 1991. It is not the Iraq war in 2003," Kerry said. "Number one, U.S. ground troops will not be sent into combat in this conflict."
Kerry also noted that the coalition would not be limited to a military one but rather a holistic effort to remove a terrorist network threatening the entire region and international order.
"The United States will not go it alone … there are more than 50 countries that already have agreed or are now doing something," he said.
He added that every country would not have a role in military engagement.
According to the secretary, ISIL’s threat accelerated when it effectively erased the Iraq-Syria border and the Mosul Dam fell in mid June.
U.S. airstrikes targeting the terror group has forced its withdrawal in some areas and Kerry said military action against ISIL would continue until its capacity to engage in broad-based terrorist activity that threatens Iraq, the region and the U.S. is eliminated.
The goal for the U.S. in Iraq is to have a sovereign Iraq with an "independent, inclusive government that is functioning,” he said.
Regarding Syria, where Obama indicated last week airstrikes against ISIL targets were possible, Kerry said that there's no solution to the civil war there without a political settlement and that view of the U.S. hasn't changed.
There was some drama when the secretary’s testimony was interrupted by protesters from Code Pink, a non-governmental organization known for its opposition to U.S. wars.
As police led a protester out of the hearing, she chanted: "Your invasion will not protect the homeland!"
"There's no invasion," Kerry responded. "The invasion was ISIL into Iraq. The invasion is foreign fighters into Syria. That's the invasion," Kerry said.
The secretary put an artful spin on the intrusion by saying, "Code Pink was started by a woman and women who were opposed to war but who also thought that the government's job was to take care of people, and to give them health care and education and good jobs," Kerry said. "If that's what you believe in, and I believe it is, then you ought to care about fighting ISIL."
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