Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter acknowledged to co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski that the United States is indeed at war with ISIS.
Partial transcript as follows:
BRZEZINSKI: How can you assure the American public that there is, indeed a strategy and that the leadership role that America is taking in the fight against ISIS fully addresses the threat that it poses?
CARTER: We have to defeat ISIL. We will defeat ISIL. You see the barbarism associated with this and — and, uh, so it — it is something that must be defeated.
SCARBOROUGH: So you — you agree with the French president that we’re at war…
CARTER: Yes.
SCARBOROUGH: — with ISIL?
CARTER: I think Francois Hollande has said it very well. I’m glad the French are galvanized and joining the fight now.
What we’re doing is, uh, just to remind you, is it — the secretary of Defense, we are — it — we are fighting every day. We have 3,500 people, I’ll remind you, on the ground in Iraq. We’re flying air sorties every day, which are very intense, very effective and we’re constantly innovating in how we’re using them.
We’re starting to go after fuel convoys now, which is something we’ve figured out how to do because ISIL uses the energy — the oil infrastructure as a way to raise money.
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