US General flags sending ground troops to fight in Iraq Sizing up a troop deployment: Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey. Washington: President Barack Obama's top military adviser said on Thursday he would consider deploying a limited number of US forces to fight alongside Iraqi troops moving to retake Mosul and other areas under the control of Sunni militants, opening the door to a riskier, more expansive US combat role in Iraq than Mr Obama has publicly outlined. General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House armed services committee that Iraqi troops, who initially fled under the onslaught of Islamic State militants, are now doing a better job of standing and fighting. But he said he could not rule out the possibility that as operations against the Sunni militants move into more complex phases of clearing Islamic State militants out of cities and other territory they hold, US troops may have to help their Iraqi counterparts. "I'm not predicting at this point that I would recommend that those forces in Mosul and along the border would need to be accompanied by US forces, but we're certainly considering it," General Dempsey said. Air strikes are "striking a blow": US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel. But he said he did not anticipate expanding the US military presence in Iraq beyond what he called a "modest" force. I just don't foresee a circumstance when it would be in our interest to take this fight on ourselves with a large military contingent. Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, who appeared with General Dempsey before the House committee, said he believed US airstrikes have been "striking a blow" against the Islamic State. The congressional testimony on Thursday underscored the challenge facing Mr Obama as he has continued to insist to a war-weary American public that the United States is not returning to ground combat in Iraq. He has maintained that US ground troops will not be used, even as his generals have increasingly hinted that there may not be a way to defeat the Sunni militant group without at least a small number of US ground troops. General Dempsey has used congressional testimony before, most recently in September, to suggest a need for greater military action, particularly if the battle against the militants moves into densely populated cities, as it must do if Iraqi forces are to retake cities claimed by the Islamic State.