WASHINGTON
U.S. defense chief Ashton Carter said Sunday that Iraqi security forces had “no will to fight” thus explaining their crushing defeat at the hands of Daesh in Ramadi.
The harsh assessment comes after Iraqi security forces crumbled in the face of a Daesh offensive on Iraq’s highly-contested city of Ramadi on May 17, leaving large numbers of U.S.-supplied arms and tanks behind.
“What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight,” the head of the Pentagon said in an interview with CNN’s Barbara Starr.
“They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight, they withdrew from the site, and that says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL [Daesh] and defend themselves,” he added.
The Iraqi defeat in Ramadi echoed the sudden withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Mosul in June 2014 after a Daesh offensive, which similarly resulted in scores of munitions falling into Daesh’s hands.
The U.S. has been seeking to bolster Iraq’s military through a robust train-and-equip program in the hopes that they can lead the offensive against Daesh on the ground with the support of U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
“We can give them training, we can give them equipment -- we obviously can't give them the will to fight. But if we give them training, we give them equipment, and give them support, and give them some time, I hope they will develop the will to fight, because only if they fight can ISIL remain defeated," Carter said.
The defense chief defended the effectiveness of airstrikes, but said that neither the aerial sorties nor any other U.S. action “can substitute for the Iraqi forces’ will to fight.”
“If there comes a time when we need to change the kinds of support we’re giving to the Iraqi forces, we’ll make the recommendation, but what happened at Ramadi was a failure of the Iraqi forces to fight,” he added.
