US Defence Secretary Ash Carter on Tuesday defended President Barack Obama's strategy to defeat Islamic State militants amid blistering criticism from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman, John McCain.
McCain, who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election and has been a harsh critic of the administration's foreign policy, said there was no compelling reason to think that anything the US was doing would be enough to achieve the president's goal of degrading and ultimately destroying IS.
McCain said Islamic State continues to gain territory in Iraq and Syria, while expanding its influence across the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
He said there was no responsible ground force in either Iraq or Syria that could seize territory from IS, and slim prospects as well from the US-led coalition's current training efforts of local ground forces.
Carter backed the president's policy while acknowledging that more needed to be done to strengthen the mission to train local forces to combat the Islamic extremists.