Defense Secretary Ash Carter caused a stir Tuesday when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the $500 million program to train and equip “moderate” Syrian rebels to take on the Islamic State had so far yielded just 60 vetted candidates. 
 
 Republicans quickly pounced on the number — far short of a goal for at least 5,400 fighters in the first year — as evidence that President Barack Obama’s strategy for defeating the terrorist group isn’t working, a day after the president defended the plan at a rare Pentagon press briefing. And Democrats quickly went into damage-control mode, noting there are valid reasons the number is so small. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) let Carter know during the Senate hearing that his remark had caused a ruckus on cable news, saying he’d just stepped out of the hearing for an appearance on CNN, and all the interviewer wanted to talk about, Nelson said, was Carter’s statement. 
 
 The Pentagon chief acknowledged he’d caused a firestorm, saying he wasn’t surprised by all the attention his statement was getting but noting that Congress deserved “to know where things stand.” 
 
 It wasn’t exactly the headline the White House was looking for the day after Obama reaffirmed at the Pentagon that his strategy to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant was working, especially with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain blasting the president’s commitment to the strategy as delusional. 
 
 But Carter’s acknowledgement that so few Syrians have made it through the vetting process also led a number of senators on both sides of the aisle to raise important questions about the viability of the train-and-equip program, asking why it’s so difficult to find moderate rebels willing to take on ISIL. 
 
 Among the problems: stringent vetting standards, the U.S. requirement that rebels be willing to fight ISIL but not Syrian President Bashar Assad and the lack of a U.S. commitment to defend these troops from Assad’s advanced weapons. 
 
 Carter told the Armed Services panel that about 7,000 volunteers were being screened for the train-and-equip program but that the vetting standards were slowing things down. 
 
 The first problem is the basic vetting, which involves background checks, proof of identification and a pledge to obey the basic laws of war. Some volunteers have been booted from the program for simple reasons such as not meeting age requirements, one defense official told POLITICO, while others could not pass one or more layers of screening to protect the U.S. and allied troops conducting the effort. 
 
 The second problem is the requirement that the Syrian volunteers must agree only to fight ISIL and not the Assad regime. U.S. officials say the “ISIL-first” strategy is essential because without a political structure in place to replace Assad if he died or left power, chaos in Syria would worsen and the state would fail, like in Libya. 
 
 But many Syrians who have been brutalized in the civil war bear more animus toward Assad than toward ISIL, which is one reason why the “ISIL-first” commitment has winnowed out so many people who came forward. 
 
 Still, Pentagon officials say they’re optimistic about increasing the throughput at the four sites that have been created for the train-and-equip effort in Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. 
 
 “As training progresses, we are learning more about the opposition groups and building important relationships, which increases our ability to attract recruits and provides valuable intelligence for counter-ISIL operations,” Carter said. 
 
 McCain and other Republicans on the panel were unmoved. 
 
 “It is not that we are doing nothing,” the Arizona senator said. “It is that there is no compelling reason to believe that anything we are currently doing will be sufficient to achieve the president’s stated goal of degrading and ultimately destroying ISIL — either in the short term or the long term.” 
 
 And he suggested there’s another major reason the U.S. has been having so much trouble with the “moderate” Syrian force — it won’t make any solid commitments to the people it’s recruiting. 
 
 Unresolved questions about the support the U.S. would give the fighters have split the Obama administration for years, leading in part to the dismissal of Carter’s predecessor, then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, who appeared with Carter before the committee Tuesday, acknowledged that a “debate” inside the administration continues about the effect that Assad has on the fight and to what degree his departure would help or hurt it. 
 
 For McCain and other critics, the problems are more basic: People won’t sign up to risk their lives unless they’re certain the U.S. is willing to provide air cover, resupply them with ammunition and supplies, and offer other types of support, he said. McCain mocked Carter’s answer about the administration’s absence of a policy, saying that no wonder Syrians wouldn’t agree to join if the answer they got was that a “decision will be made later.” 
 
 “It’s shameful to send people in and not assure them that we will defend them from attacks by barrel bombs,” McCain said. 
 
 McCain, who has been Obama’s foremost foreign-policy critic, had several other heated exchanges with Carter during Tuesday’s hearing. The Pentagon chief sought to provide some cover for the president by offering examples of progress in the U.S.-led campaign to defeat the terrorist group that has declared its own state. 
 
 Carter said the more than 5,000 airstrikes carried out by the United States and its coalition partners have “produced some clear tactical results,” putting ISIL “on the defensive,” with “its stronghold in Raqqah under pressure.” 
 
 But the defense secretary also acknowledged setbacks, making clear the administration was not even close to where it had hoped to be in its efforts to train Iraqi and Syrian forces. 
 
 As of June 30, he said, “we’ve only received enough trainees to be able to train” about 10,800 Iraqi troops, with an additional 4,600 in training. “I’ve told Iraqi leaders that while the United States is open to supporting Iraq more than we already are, we must see a greater commitment from all parts of the Iraqi government,” Carter said. 
 
 And in Syria, he explained, the administration’s efforts to train and equip a force to take on ISIL were still in the “early stages.” 
 
 “President Obama’s comments yesterday at the Pentagon reveal a disturbing degree of self-delusion,” McCain said. “None of the so-called progress that the president cited suggests that we are on a path to success.” 
 
 Several Democrats stepped in to defend the defense secretary, including the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island. 
 
 “The pipeline is about 7,000,” Reed told POLITICO. “From that I think you’ll start seeing increased numbers. And then when you reach a critical mass, you start raising the question of where are they deployed, how are they deployed, are they supported.” 
 
 But, Reed was quick to add, “It’s going to take time.” ||||| WASHINGTON The United States was only training about 60 Syrian opposition fighters to battle Islamic State as of July 3, far below expectations, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress on Tuesday, citing rigorous U.S. vetting of recruits. 
 
 The program, which launched in May in Jordan and Turkey, was designed to train as many as 5,400 fighters a year and seen as a test of President Barack Obama's strategy of engaging local partners to combat extremists. 
 
 Carter's acknowledgement of the low number of recruits will give ammunition to critics who say Obama's strategy is too limited to have any influence on Syria's brutal civil war. 
 
 "Given the poor numbers of recruited and trained Syrian fighters thus far, I am doubtful we can achieve our goal of training a few thousand this year," said Republican Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. 
 
 Some Syrian rebel leaders say the force the United States is training risks sowing divisions and cannot succeed without directly targeting Syrian government forces, who are currently off-limits for U.S. offensive operations. 
 
 The top Democrat on the committee, Senator Jack Reed, said Islamic State "remains the dominant force in western Syria." 
 
 "Absent a moderate opposition that is willing to and capable of taking territory from ISIL and holding it, any change in the status quo is unlikely," he said, using an acronym for the group. 
 
 Obama was briefed by his top military commanders at the Pentagon on Monday. He said at a news conference later that "we will do more to train and equip the moderate opposition in Syria" but did not offer details. 
 
 Carter told Congress the number of recruits would increase as the United States learned how to better streamline vetting. 
 
 "We are also refining our curriculum, expanding our outreach to the moderate opposition, and incorporating lessons learned 
 
 from the first training class," Carter said. 
 
 Obama has yet to announce whether he will go beyond resupplying and financing the proxy force, and protect them with U.S. fighter jets if they clash with Assad's forces. The United States is already conducting near daily air strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq. 
 
 Carter said he believed the Syrian recruits needed some U.S. protection but said no decisions had been made on what assistance to provide. 
 
 (Reporting by Phil Stewart and David Alexander; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
– The Pentagon's plan to train an army of moderate Syrian rebels to defeat ISIS hasn't gotten off to the best start, officials admit: The $500 million program, which involves hundreds of US troops and training sites in Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, has only trained 60 vetted candidates so far, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told Congress yesterday. The program's goal was to produce 5,400 fighters a year as part of the White House's strategy to provide assistance to those fighting ISIS on the ground, reports Reuters. Carter explained to the Armed Services Committee that around 7,000 potential fighters are being vetted, and authorities are trying to ensure that they have no history of atrocities and no intention of committing future ones, the Guardian reports. Defense sources tell Politico that while background checks have eliminated some rebels, many potential fighters who came forward have been rejected because they won't commit to only fighting ISIS and not the Assad regime they were rebelling against in the first place. (Israel's anti-ISIS strategy involves a very big fence.)