President Obama speaks at CENTCOM
President Obama speaks at United States Central Command / MacDill Air Force Base, Tampa, FL on Friday, September 17, 2014. Video courtesy Bay News 9.
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President Obama speaks at CENTCOM - Video
Masoud Barzani: We support Obama #39;s strategy
Masoud Barzani talks to CNN #39;s Anna Coren about ISIS and President Obama #39;s strategy to stop their growth. More from CNN at http://www.cnn.com/ To license this and other CNN/HLN content, visit...
By: Keith Dunn
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Masoud Barzani: We support Obama's strategy - Video
TIME Politics Infectious Disease Obama on Ebola: The World Is Looking to Us US President Barack Obama makes a statement following meetings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sept.16, 2014 in Atlanta. Mandel NganAFP/Getty Images Obama confirms U.S. efforts to lead the charge against the Ebola virus sweeping through West Africa
President Barack Obama confirmed the U.S.s renewed and bolstered efforts to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in a press conference Tuesday at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
The U.S. has committed to sending a deployment of 3,000 U.S. military forces and over $500 million in defense spending to West Africa, a response the President says is a national-security priority since the epidemic has profound security implications.
Faced with this outbreak, the world is looking to us, the United States, and its a responsibility that we embrace, said the President. Its a potential threat to global security if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic. That has profound effects on all of us, even if we are not directly contracting the disease.
Obama spent the day at the CDC headquarters to talk about the U.S. response called Operation United Assistance and to thank health care workers dealing with the outbreak. Before leaving Washington to travel down to Atlanta, Obama met with Ebola survivor Dr. Kent Brantly and his wife Amber. Brantly was in the nations capital to testify before Congress about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Brantly contracted Ebola while treating patients in Liberia as a missionary doctor for the organization Samaritans Purse. [I am] grateful to [Dr. Brantly] and his family for the service he has rendered to people who are a lot less lucky than all of us, Obama said Tuesday.
During his Atlanta trip, Obama also met the Emory University Hospital doctors who have been treating American patients with Ebola evacuated to the U.S.
The WHO has reported 4,963 cases of Ebola and 2,453 deaths in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Obama says the U.S. has four central goals: to control the outbreak, address the ripple effect, coordinate a broader global response, and urgently build up a public-health system for the countries for the future. This massive ramp-up of support from the United States is precisely the kind of transformational change we need to get a grip on the outbreak and begin to turn it around, said Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization in a statement sent to media.
As part of the U.S. effort to combat the outbreak, Department of Defense personnel will offer training and epidemic logistics. At the request of the Liberian government, the U.S. will set up a military command center in Liberia, led by Major General Darryl Williams, commander of U.S. Army forces in Africa. The Pentagon is also poised to deliver 130,000 sets of personal protective equipment and thousands of kits that can be used for disease diagnostics. Africa Command engineers will be constructing several additional treatment facilities and more than 1,000 beds, and will train up to 500 health care workers a week. In his press conference, Obama reiterated that the threat of Ebola spread in the U.S. is extremely low.
The reality is that this epidemic is going to get worse before it gets better, concluded Obama. The United States of America intends to do more Were going to continue to make sure that the world understands the need for them to step alongside us.
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Obama on Ebola: The World Is Looking to Us
President Barack Obama vowed on Wednesday the United States will not fight another ground war in Iraq, seeking to reassure Americans about the level of U.S. involvement after a top general suggested combat troops could be deployed against Islamic State forces.
Obama, who has spent much of his presidency distancing himself from the Iraq War, stressed during a speech at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa that airstrikes would be the central U.S. contribution to the fight against Islamic State, along with coordinating a coalition that he said now includes more than 40 countries.
"I want to be clear. The American forces that have been deployed to Iraq do not and will not have a combat mission," Obama said.
"We will train and equip our partners. We will advise them and we will assist them. We will lead a broad coalition of countries who have a stake in this fight."
His message came a day after General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, left the door slightly ajar to the possibility of some ground forces during congressional testimony that worried some Democrats.
"As your commander in chief I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq," Obama said.
The United States has launched more than 160 airstrikes against Islamic State targets in several areas in Iraq and Obama has authorized similar attacks against the extremist group's strongholds in Syria.
More than 1,600 American advisers have been dispatched to help Iraqi forces but Obama does not want them to get involved in ground combat to avoid a repeat of the Iraq War begun by his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.
In testimony to a Senate committee on Tuesday, Dempsey outlined scenarios in which he might recommend having U.S. troops do more, potentially accompanying Iraqis during complicated offensives, such as a battle to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State fighters.
The statement rattled some Democrats who worry about getting sucked into another war in Iraq.
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Obama vows U.S. will not fight another ground war in Iraq
President Barack Obama reaffirmed Wednesday that he does not intend to send U.S. troops into combat against the Islamic State group, despite doubts about the ability of Iraqi forces, Kurdish fighters and Syrian rebels to carry out the ground fight on their own.
"The American forces do not and will not have a combat mission," Obama told troops at MacDill Air Force Base.
It was a firm response to suggestions raised Tuesday by his top military commander that, under certain circumstances, American ground forces may be needed.
Obama said U.S. troops "will support Iraqi forces on the ground as they fight for their own country against these terrorists."
But, he added, "As your commander in chief, I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq."
On that point, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi was in agreement with Obama and stressed in a Wednesday interview with The Associated Press that he sees no need for other countries to send troops into Iraq to help fight the Islamic State group.
"Not only is it not necessary," al-Abadi said. "We don't want them. We won't allow them."
In his remarks, Obama offered a vision of a potent force that can have a major role in conflicts, a more forceful view than he has embraced before. But he still stressed that for the effort against the militants to succeed, the U.S. will need to lead the international coalition and local forces must handle a significant role.
"Frankly, there just aren't a lot of other folks who can perform in the same way. In fact, there are none. There are some things only we can do. There are some capabilities only we have," he said.
"Our armed forces are unparalleled and unique. So when we've got a big problem somewhere around the world, it falls on our shoulders. Sometimes that's tough. But that's what sets us apart. That's why we're American."
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Obama Reaffirms Opposition to US Combat in Iraq