Carter: Not enough good Iraqi recruits to train against ISIS

 Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY10:37 a.m. EDT June 17, 2015                                       WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Ashton Cartertold Congress Wednesday the Obama administration's war on the Islamic State has been hampered by the lack of Iraqi recruits who can be trained by U.S. troops.

Training local ground troops to seize land taken by fighters from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, has been touted as the linchpin of the American effort to defeat the terrorist organization.

Last summer, it swept through northern Iraq, capturing its second-largest city, Mosul. Last month, its fighters took Ramadi, a provincial capital west of Baghdad without a fight — despite being outnumbered more than 10-to-1.

Carter acknowledged that one slice Pentagon's piece of the strategy — training troops – has not gone well.

"Of the 24,000 Iraqi security forces we had originally envisioned training at our four sites by this fall, we've only received enough recruits to be able to train about 7,000, in addition to about 2,000 counter-terrorism service personnel," Carter said. "As I've told Iraqi leaders, while the United States is open to supporting Iraq more than we already are, we must see a greater commitment from all parts of the Iraqi government."

Carter called the loss of Ramadi "deeply disappointing." It prompted a re-evaluation of the counter-ISIS strategy and led to the decision to deploy 450 additional U.S. troops to a base near Ramadi in Anbar province in Iraq, he said. They will be dispatched to western Iraq where they will help recruit and train Sunni soldiers, who are under-represented in the army, Carter said.