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NEWPORT, Wales--President Barack Obama said key NATO allies stood ready to join the United States in military action to defeat Islamic State militants in Iraq as he vowed to 'take out' the leaders of a movement he said was a major threat to the West.
Obama said the Washington would hunt down and dismantle the organisation, which has seized swathes of Iraq and Syria, in the same way it had tackled al Qaeda since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States and was doing to al-Shabaab in Somalia.
"Key NATO allies stand ready to confront this terrorist threat through military, intelligence and law enforcement as well as diplomatic efforts," Obama said after ministers of 10 nations met on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Wales to form what Washington called a "core coalition".
Ministers from Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Turkey, Italy, Poland, Denmark and non-NATO Australia attended the talks with the U.S. secretaries of state and defence, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. "Already allies have joined us in Iraq where we have stopped ISIL's advances, we have equipped our Iraqi partners and helped them go on offence," Obama told a news conference.
The United States hoped a new Iraqi government would be formed next week and was confident it would have a coalition for the sustained action required to destroy the militants. French President Francois Hollande confirmed Paris was willing to join U.S. air strikes if requested by a new Baghdad government as part of a comprehensive international strategy to confront IS. He also raised the possibility of hot pursuit operations in Syria or assisting other rebels fighting IS there.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, who failed to win parliamentary backing for military action in Syria last year, was more cautious about participating in armed action, saying: "We are not at that stage yet."
The British public is deeply wary of foreign military intervention after London joined Washington in the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on false information about weapons of mass destruction. France, which opposed that operation, is more open to overseas action.
Obama drew criticism last week for saying he had not yet developed a strategy for confronting the Islamic State in Syria, which has provoked public outrage in the West with the gruesome beheading two U.S. journalists. The United States stressed the need for a comprehensive approach in the talks on Friday and acknowledged that action against IS in Iraq would have implications in Syria as well.
"We are going to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL, the same way that we have gone after al Qaeda," Obama said in some of his toughest comments since Washington began air strikes last month to halt the Islamists' advance in northern Iraq. "You initially push them back, you systematically degrade their capabilities, you narrow their scope of action, you slowly shrink the space, the territory that they may control, you take out their leadership, and over time they are not able to conduct the same kinds of terrorist attacks as they once could."
