A feisty President Barack Obama said at a Saturday morning statement on Iraq that airstrikes had destroyed arms and equipment of militant forces in Iraq. He also said that the U.S. had increased assistance to Kurdish forces in the country.
Obama added that U.S. involvement against ISIL militants there would last but doubted that it would be over in a matter of weeks.
“I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks,” Obama said. “I think this is going to take some time.”
Obama delivered the statement before he boarded Marine One for a roughly two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
His comments came a day after, according to U.S. officials, American forces launched a second set of strikes against Islamic militant targets in Iraq.
When taking questions from reporters Obama also strongly pushed back on the idea that the current situation was the result of his administration not leaving U.S. troops in the country. He said that argument was “bogus and wrong.”
