White House defends ground troops in Syria

President Obama (Image: WhiteHouse.gov)

President Obama announced Friday a plan to send a small number of American special operations forces to Syria, marking the first time he's sent in the ground troops to help the nation in its fight against ISIS.

Specifically, the White House is sending about 50 special operations' forces to northern Syrian areas controlled by the Kurds; deploying  A10 and F15 fighter jets to an airbase in Turkey, and establishing a Special Forces outfit in Iraq to target ISIS terrorists and ISIS leaders. Obama also gave permission for the Pentagon to bolster military aid to Jordan and Lebanon in order to fight off ISIS.

But the announcement sparked immediate backlash by those who recalled Obama's previous clear-cut vows to never send ground troops to Syria. In a Friday press conference, White House spokesman Josh Earnest took the hot seat and faced off with a roomful of reporters who reminded him in several different ways of Obama's past promise.

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Earnest first assured: The ground troops do not constitute a shift in strategy.

"The fact is our strategy in Syria hasn't changed," he said. "The core of our military strategy inside Syria is to build up the capacity of local forces to take the fight to ISIL on the ground in their own country."

He went on: "There are a variety of ways the United States or our coalition partners can offer our support ... whether it's resupplying them or conducting airstrikes ... and the president did make the decision to intensify that support by offering a small number of special operations military personnel to offer them advice and assistance on the ground as they take the fight to ISIL So this is an intensification of a strategy that the president announced more than a year ago and he's discussed it with all of you on many occasions and I suspect he'll discuss it with you in the future."

Not many in the press room seemed to be buying that line, however.

As one reporter at the conference pointed, Obama said on September 10. 2013: "I will not put American troops on the ground in Syria."

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Earnest said the quote was taken out of context. The reporter also followed up by saying Obama has "consistently said he's not going to put boots on the ground" in Syria.

"Again," Earnest said, "the only quote you read me was a quote from 2013 ... and when the president has talked about combat situations, the president has been quite clear, that he does not contemplate a large-scale, long-term combat operation either in Iraq or in Syria. ... It's our strategy today."

Moments earlier, another journalist outed Earnest for the seeming skewed definition of combat.

"The president said there wouldn't be ground operations in Syria, not large-scale ground operations," he said Earnest. "So what are these forces [now being sent] doing?"

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Earnest doubled down: Troops are going to Syria to advise, assist and train Syrian rebel forces.

"They will not be in a combat mission," he said.

Earnest also could not clearly answer a question about the potential to send in more U.S. troops in the future.

"I don't want to try to predict the future here," Earnest said. "I think we've been quite specific about what our strategy is and we have shown a desire to intensify our efforts ... [for] building the capacity of local forces."