BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The United States’ top military officer told American troops on a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday that the momentum in the battle with Islamic State was “starting to turn”, but predicted a drawn-out campaign lasting several years.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was visiting Iraq for the first time since President Barack Obama responded to Islamic State advances this summer by ordering troops back into a country they left in 2011.
Hours earlier, an Iraqi army colonel said security forces appeared close to retaking the country’s biggest refinery at Baiji, which has been under siege for months by Islamic State militants.
Obama last week authorised roughly doubling the number of American ground forces as the military expands the reach of its advisers after slowing the militants’ advances with US airstrikes.
Dempsey told the troops the US military had helped Iraqi and Kurdish forces “pull Iraq back from the precipice”.
“And now, I think it’s starting to turn. So well done,” Dempsey told a group of Marines at the US embassy in Baghdad. Reuters accompanied him on the trip.
