Trump And The Military Are Making Quite A Team In Muslimland

The United States had never lost a war until the politicians sent our military into battle ... but wouldn't let them use their own expert judgment in strategy and tactics. Politicians thought Washington knew better than the generals, who had spent their lifetimes studying it. The result was Viet Nam. The military did not lose that war, but Congress, the Executive Branch, and primarily the Liberal News Media lost it. We now have a President who, with all his obvious shortcomings, is correcting the awful mess created in Washington by those same three deeply flawed, majority Liberal institutions. Here is just one example of what Trump has quickly accomplished, in what appeared to be an impossible situation. He cannot solve the $200,000,000,000,000 indebtedness quagmire created by the Liberals of both parties ( 80% Democrat, 20% Republican)  ... only God could do that, but he is at least headed in the right direction ... That's right ... right. RB

From FOX News ... Not NBC, CBS, ABC, or CNN

Trump, Marine General Mattis Turn 

Military Loose On ISIS, Leaving 

Terror Caliphate In Tatters .....

"I felt quite liberated because we had a clear mandate and there was no questioning that.” - U.S. Marine Col. Seth Folsom.  At its peak, ISIS held land in Iraq and Syria that equaled the size of West Virginia, ruled over as many as 8 million people, controlled oilfields and refineries, agriculture, smuggling routes and vast arsenals. It ran a brutal, oppressive government, even printing its own currency. 

Lt. Col. Seth Folsom credits the cooperation between Iraqi Security Forces and the U.S-led coalition for the military defeat of ISIS in Iraq.  The terror organization now controls just 3 percent of Iraq and less than 5 percent of Syria. Its self-styled "caliph," Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is believed to be injured and holed up somewhere along the lawless border of Syria and Iraq. 

ISIS remains a danger, as members who once ruled cities and villages like a quasi-government now live secretly among civilian populations in the region, in Europe and possibly in the U.S. These cells will likely present a terrorist threat for years. In addition, the terrorist organization is attempting to regroup in places such as the Philippines, Libya, and the Sinai Peninsula. 

But the military’s job -- to take back the land ISIS claimed as its caliphate and liberate cities like Mosul, in Iraq, and Raqqa, in Syria, as well as countless smaller cities and villages, is largely done. And it has taken less than a year. 

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis waits to greet Polish Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz, upon his arrival at the Pentagon, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Mattis, a US Marine Corps general, said there would be no White House micromanaging on his watch  (Associated Press) “The leadership team that is in place right now has certainly enabled us to succeed,” Brig. Gen. Andrew Croft, the ranking U.S. Air Force officer in Iraq, told Fox News. “I couldn’t ask for a better leadership team to work for, to enable the military to do what it does best.” 

President Trump gave a free hand to Mattis, who in May stressed military commanders were no longer being slowed by Washington “decision cycles,” or by the White House micromanaging that existed President Obama. As a result of the new approach, the fall of ISIS in Iraq came even more swiftly than hardened U.S. military leaders expected. 

“It moved more quickly than at least I had anticipated,” Croft said. “We and the Iraqi Security Forces were able to hunt down and target ISIS leadership, target their command and control.” 

U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Robert Sofge said the military now has a clear mandate. 

IRAQI KURDS STILL LOVE US DESPITE U.S. OPPOSITION TO KURDISH INDEPENDENCE, SAYS, KURDISH LEADER 

After the battle to liberate Mosul – ISIS’ Iraqi headquarters - was completed in July -- the U.S.-led coalition retook Tel Afar in August, Hawija in early October and Rawa in Anbar province in November. 

Marine Col. Seth Folsom, who oversaw fighting in Al Qaim near the Syrian border, agreed. He wasn’t expecting his part of the campaign against ISIS to get going until next spring and figured even then, it would then "take six months or more." 

Instead, ISIS was routed in Al Qaim in just a few days. 

Mosul and several other cities liberated by ISIS were largely destroyed in the fighting.  (Fox News/Hollie McKay) “We really had one mandate and that was to enable the Iraqi Security Forces to defeat ISIS militarily here in Anbar. I feel that we have achieved that mission,” Folsom said. “I never felt constrained. In a lot of ways, I felt quite liberated because we had a clear mandate and there was no questioning that.” 

Brig. Gen. Robert “G-Man” Sofge, the top U.S. Marine in Iraq, told Fox News his commanders have “enjoyed not having to deal with too many distractions and there was no question about what the mission here in Iraq was.” 

Iraqi Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool was skeptical of Trump at first but says success on the ground has been swift,  “We were able to focus on what our job was without distraction and I think that goes a long way in what we are trying to accomplish here,” he said. 

Sofge said criticism that loosening rules of engagement put civilians at risk is “absolutely not true.” 

Col. Ryan Dillon. Combined Joint Task Force - Inherent Resolve Spokesman said, “We used precision strikes, and completely in accordance with international standards,” he said. “We didn’t lower that standard, not one little bit. But we were able to exercise that precision capability without distraction and I think the results speak for themselves.” 

The U.S.-led coalition said this week the Coalition Civilian Casualty Assessment Team has added 30 new staffers to travel throughout the region. It said military leaders continue to “hold themselves accountable for actions that may have caused unintentional injury or death to civilians.” 

The coalition also said dozens of reports of civilian casualties have been determined to be “non-credible,” and just .35 percent of the almost 57,000 separate engagement carried out between August 2014 and October 2017 resulted in a credible report of a civilian casualty. 

In addition to air support, the U.S.-led strategy also includes training and equipping Iraqi troops on the ground. 

While the Trump administration’s success is often underplayed in the U.S. media, it is obvious on the ground in Iraq, according to a spokesman for Iraq’s Ministry of Defense, Yahya Rasool. 

“I was not optimistic when Trump first came to the office,” Rasool said. “But after a while, I started to see a new approach, the way the U.S. was dealing with arming and training. I saw how the coalition forces were all moving faster to help the Iraq side more than before. There seemed to be a lot of support, under Obama we did not get this.” 

Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appears to be still alive, a top U.S. military commander said Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017, contradicting Russia's claims that it probably killed the top counterterror target months ago. Al-Baghdadi, who once ruled a caliphate the size of California, is now in hiding and likely badly injured Despite the victories on the battlefield, U.S. officials cautioned much work remains to be done. 

“ISIS is very adaptive,” noted Col. Ryan Dillon, the U.S.-led coalition spokesman. “We are already seeing smaller cells and pockets that take more of an insurgent guerrilla type approach as opposed to an Islamic army or conventional type force. So we have got to be prepared for that.” 

He said, as a result, the coalition is “adjusting some training efforts” so the Iraqi forces -- upwards of 150,000 have already undergone training -- are equipped to address such threats and ensure long-term stability. 

Folsom said “the worst thing we could do” is not finishing the job. 

“If a country becomes a failed state, if it becomes a lawless region, you begin to set the conditions for what happened in the years before 9/11,” he said. “In those ungoverned spaces where we don’t know what is going on, that is where those seeds of extremism begin to blossom.” 

Hollie McKay has been a FoxNews.com staff reporter since 2007. She has reported extensively from the Middle East on the rise and fall of terrorist groups such as ISIS in Iraq. Follow her on twitter at @holliesmckay