Dem: ‘Absolutely right’ to say Iraqi forces lack ‘will to fight’

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter was “absolutely right” to say Iraqi forces lack the “will to fight” the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) said Monday.

Baghdad shouldn’t expect the U.S. to send more troops back into the country to “do the fighting that their young people should be doing,” Lynch told The Boston Herald.

“We cannot do that. We cannot,” Lynch said.

{mosads}“Look, people can’t outsource their wars to the United States and have our sons and daughters go in and do the fighting that their young people should be doing. There’s no lack of motivation here. ISIL is butchering the civilian population there,” he added, using another common acronym for the terror group.

On Sunday, Carter criticized the U.S.-backed Iraqi forces following their recent rout by ISIS in the city of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province.

“What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight,” Carter said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The remarks have sparked a controversy between Washington and Baghdad. Iraqi government officials have rejected the characterization, and Vice President Biden called Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Monday to defuse the tension.

But Lynch said Carter was “absolutely right” to chastise the Iraqis, noting he visited a refugee camp on the Syrian border last summer where “people on the ground” made similar statements.

“They want the U.S. to come in and fight their war. So our question to them was, ‘Why should it be us? Why shouldn’t the Iraqis and Syrians be fighting their own war against ISIL?’ ” Lynch said.

“And they had no good answer. They did say, they think the United States can do this more quickly. ‘You can do this in a couple of weeks,’ they said.”