President Obama said Saturday that U.S. forces will seek to deny a safe haven to "barbaric terrorists" in Iraq and will help create a humanitarian corridor to rescue thousands of religious refugees trapped on a mountaintop, broadening his goals for the latest U.S. intervention in Iraq.
Speaking on the White House South Lawn, the president also suggested that the airstrikes by U.S. Navy fighter jets and Predator drones against Islamist militants that began Friday near the major city of Irbil won't be a short-term operation.
"I don't think we're going to solve this problem in weeks," he said. Ensuring a stable Iraq "is going to be a long-term project."
Obama said that the first few U.S. airstrikes had destroyed arms and equipment of Islamic State fighters advancing on Irbil, capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, and that the U.S. was stepping up assistance to Kurdish forces defending the city.
The U.S. is prepared, he said, to continue bombing the fighters of Islamic State, an Al Qaeda breakaway group, as long as thousands of Americans living and working in Irbil are threatened.
"We're going to maintain vigilance and ensure that our people our safe," the president said, before departing for Martha's Vineyard on a family vacation.
Obama also said he is confident that U.S. airstrikes and assistance to Iraqi forces can prevent the militants "from going up the mountain and slaughter" thousands of Yazidi people who have been stranded atop Sinjar Mountain.
Tens of thousands of Yazidis, adherents of an ancient religion related to Zoroastrianism, fled the approaching Sunni Muslim militants and became trapped on the barren mountain, where U.S. cargo planes have dropped food and water to them. Thus far, U.S. military aircraft have delivered 36,224 meals and 6,822 gallons of water.
U.S. aircraft are positioned to strike the militants laying siege to the mountain. The next step, Obama said, "is how do we give safe passage" to bring those who fled there out.
Obama's remarks indicated a more ambitious view of U.S. engagement in Iraq than the White House had previously suggested.
In a letter to congressional leaders Friday night, the president said military options would be "limited in their scope and duration," and were specifically designed to stop the advance of IS forces on Irbil and to assist Iraqi forces.
The president conceded Saturday that the advance of Islamic State forces in recent months has been "more rapid" than U.S. intelligence agencies had expected. He said Iraqi security forces outside Baghdad "did not have the incentive or the capacity to hold their ground against an aggressive adversary."
Asked specifically to outline a timetable for U.S. military involvement, Obama did not answer directly.
"The most important timetable that I'm focused on right now is the Iraqi government getting formed," he said. "In the absence of an Iraqi government, it is very hard to get a unified effort by Iraqis" against the extremists.
A senior U.S. military officer said creating a humanitarian corridor to evacuate thousands of refugees from Mt. Sinjar "will require some armed force on the ground."
Whether those would be Iraqi army troops or others has yet to be decided, he said.
Obama has vowed not to send U.S. troops back in Iraq.
Obama and his family will spend nearly two weeks at a rented beachfront compound on Martha's Vineyard, a resort island off Cape Cod, although he will return to Washington for three days for White House meetings.
Times staff writer David S. Cloud contributed to this story.
Follow @mikememoli for more news out of Washington.
Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times
9:06 a.m.: This post has been updated to add further details of President Obama's remarks and of the situation in northern Iraq.
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