Kerry: US campaign against ISIL will last for years

Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday the offensive is not going to be a brief one and will take years to end.
 
“The issue that confronts us today is one on which we all ought to be able to agree. ISIL must be defeated, period, end of story. And collectively, we are all going to be measured by how we carry out this mission,” he said.
 
He said two pillars of the US strategy is forming an inclusive government in Iraq and building an anti-ISIL coalition.  "At this moment, no country has been asked to put boots on the ground or no country is talking of it. And we don't think it's a good idea right now."
 
Kerry claimed that more than 50 nations have already agreed to join the coalition to help defeat ISIL.
 
The top US diplomat noted that Washington should dry up ISIL funding and stop the flow of foreign militants who are joining the terrorist group.
 
In an interview with NBC News on Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the US-led coalition against the ISIL terrorists “ridiculous”, saying the coalition members include those who provided the ISIL with weapons and training.
 
The ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, control large parts of Syria's northern territory. ISIL sent its fighters into Iraq in June, quickly seizing large swaths of land straddling the border between the two countries.
 
During his televised speech on Wednesday, President Barack Obama said the US military will expand its bombing campaign against ISIL terrorists beyond Iraq and launch airstrikes in Syria.
 
The US president also noted that ISIL made a major strategic error by killing American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
 
The House of Representatives and the US Senate should authorize Obama to go to war against the group, but Obama says he has the authority to wage war.
 
Obama has repeatedly announced that his new offensive against ISIL will not include US ground troops as his administration finalized Syria airstrike plans.
 
On Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States is at war with ISIL terrorists in Syria and Iraq.
 
Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey appeared before the Senate panel to defend Obama’s newest war in the Middle East.
 
The Pentagon announced that the United States already has conducted more than 170 airstrikes against ISIL targets in Iraq.