Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — Congress is concerned that President Barack Obama has failed to draft a policy on Iraq.

Leading members of Congress have expressed dismay over the rising U.S. military presence in Iraq. They said Obama was sending more advisers and troops to Iraq without determining U.S. goals amid the advance by Al Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

“We have ,” Rep. Colleen
Hanabusa, a Hawaii Democrat, said.

Ms. Hanabusa, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, referred
to briefings by the Defense Department to Congress. She said leading
administration officials have been unable to define U.S. goals to stop ISIL
or preserve the integrity of Iraq.

“National security officials are indicating that we are making this up
as we go along in Iraq,” Ms. Hanabusa said. “I have yet to hear any
meaningful outline of exactly what interests are served by our involvement
in Iraq.”

Sen. John McCain, the ranking Republican in the Senate Armed Services
Committee, agreed. McCain said the administration failed to draft a strategy
against ISIL, deemed by the intelligence community as threat to the United
States. He referred to a briefing in July 2014 by Defense Secretary Chuck
Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“[They] could not articulate a strategy to counter what our intelligence
estimates [say] is a direct threat to the United States of America,” McCain
recalled.

So far, the Defense Department has reported the establishment of two
joint operations centers in Iraq — one of them in Baghdad and the other in
Irbil. The Pentagon also oversaw the establishment of a helicopter and
unmanned aerial fleet in Baghdad to protect the U.S. embassy.

A leading ally of Obama in the Senate said the administration was
counting on the formation of a unity government. But Sen. Carl Levin,
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, acknowledged that the White
House did not envision a failure of political efforts in Baghdad.

“I think everyone is excluding that possibility,” Levin said.

  000 troops’ and armed drones in Iraq, but ‘no real plan’, House Armed Services Committee, House Democrat: Obama has ‘almost 1, ISIL, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, Sen. John McCain