Obama's expeditionary force

Cruz slams Obama's expeditionary force for Iraq

By Nick Gass

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz criticized the White House's announcement to send a new special operations force to Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State, a move that "will over time be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture" ISIL leaders, Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified before Congress on Tuesday.

"You may need some embedded special forces to direct that air power," the Texas senator told The Associated Press in an extended discussion about his foreign policy views published Wednesday, "but not the way President Obama is doing it now, which [is] just sending our guys over there with no mission, no plan to win."

Cruz told the AP that he would consider sending a larger U.S. ground force only if there were situations affecting "vital U.S. national security interests."

As he has done in the past, Cruz also advocated for arming the ethnic Kurds fighting ISIL, remarking, "in a very real sense, the Kurds are our troops on the ground." He also spoke against removing Bashar Assad from power in Syria, arguing that the Middle East and the U.S. are better served with him still in command in Damascus, citing the ousters of Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Qadhafi as instances where American interests suffered from Arab autocrats' removal.

Cruz is not the only Republican candidate tweaking the administration's latest decision. In an interview with "Fox and Friends" on Wednesday, Donald Trump slammed Obama for telegraphing his approach in fighting ISIL.

"If you do your job, do your job. Don’t talk about it. Too much talk," he said. "And you imagine General MacArthur, take any general, any general, somebody that knows what he’s doing, they don’t talk about where they’re sending their troops, how they’re sending their troops. These troops are meant to do this and that, go into homes and take out people. You don’t do that. You send the troops quietly. These people have targets on their head."