Odierno: ISIS Fight Will Last '10 To 20 Years': The Army’s top officer believes the fight against the Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS or ISIL, will last “10 to 20 years,” an expansion of the timelines generally offered by the Obama administration.
Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, added that the solution to the militant group cannot come entirely by military means.
“In my mind, ISIS is a ten to twenty year problem, it’s not a two years problem,” he told reporters Friday. “Now, I don’t know what level it will be a problem, but it’s a long term problem.”
White House officials have been warning since strikes began against the militant group that the fight could be years long, but Odierno’s assessment is by far the longest timetable laid out by a Pentagon official.
“The administration has said ‘three to five’ years. I think in order to defeat ISIL, it’s going to take longer than that,” Odierno said. “This movement is growing right now, and so I think it’s going to take us a bit longer than we originally thought.”
