UK accelerating pace of anti-ISIS missions, says defense secretary

Read the Full Transcript

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  The United States and its coalition partners have been fighting the Islamic State group for 16 months to beat back the group's gains in both Syria and Iraq.

  At the same time, Syria's many-sided civil war continues unabated. Russia has inserted itself to support the regime of its ally President Bashar al-Assad. And last week, the United Kingdom said that it would join the U.S. and France in bombing Islamic State in Syria as the militant group has begun attacks on the West.

  All this comes as a major diplomatic push to end the nearly-five-year-old brutal war is under way, and the American and British defense secretaries at the Pentagon.

• ASHTON CARTER, Defense Secretary:

  We will defeat ISIL, and we will ensure that they stay defeated.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Secretary of Defense Ash Carter hosted his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, to chart the coalition's progress in the campaign against the Islamic State group.

  Fallon said British sorties have been aimed at ISIS fighters and the oil fields the group uses, in part, to finance itself. After the Paris attacks, as France began airstrikes in Syria, Britain's Parliament approved expanding the U.K.'s existing Iraq air campaign into Syria as well.

  Meanwhile, today in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about his country's war in Syria. For the first time, he said that Russian aircraft are now helping a rebel group, the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army.

• PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russia (through interpreter):

  The activities of our aviation group assists in uniting the efforts of government troops and the Free Syrian Army.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Back in Washington, State Department spokesman John Kirby said those claims were unverified, but noted that, in the past, Russia has targeted those groups. Fallon echoed Kirby on that point.

• MICHAEL FALLON, Defense Secretary, United Kingdom:

  What they have got to do is stop propping up the Assad regime, stop bombing opposition groups who are opposed to the Assad regime, stop dropping unguided munitions on innocent villages and groups who have been fighting Assad, and get behind the political process that is now under way.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Earlier today, I sat down with Britain's defense secretary to discuss the war effort at the residence of the British ambassador here in Washington.

  Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, thank you very much for talking with us.

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Good morning.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  So, for Americans who weren't following closely the vote in your Parliament last week to authorize the expansion of airstrikes against ISIS from Iraq into Syria, what was it that led to the decision to go against what had seemed to be an anti-interventionist policy in your country?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Well, I think a growing recognition that this border between Iraq and Syria is not recognized by ISIL itself, and it's completely artificial and rather odd to be carrying out airstrikes on one side of the border, but the Royal Air Force having to turn back at the border and not follow through the other side of the border.

  It was also a response to France and the United States and other countries that wanted Britain to step up its contribution to the campaign. And I'm delighted we're now able to do that. We have doubled the number of strike aircraft that we have in theater. And we're upping the tempo of our missions.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  You started the air campaign right away, after the vote. It just happened within hours. What have been the main targets and how successful has it been so far?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  We have focused those strikes very much on the infrastructure that supports ISIS, the oil wells, for example, the supply routes, the depots, the arms dumps, the logistics, the command and control, because we need to degrade the infrastructure and the revenue that supports the supporting organization.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Has it been — how successful has it been?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  The strikes we have carried out so far have been successful. They have been mainly in the oil fields of Eastern Syria. We have been hitting oil wellheads, and those strikes, yes, have been successful.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  The question then arises, there's been an air campaign in Iraq against ISIS for a year or more. There's been some progress, but it's been limited. What makes you believe that expanding into Syria, that this campaign is going to be any more successful?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Well, this was never going to be a quick campaign. It was your own Secretary Kerry who said he thought the campaign in Iraq might last at least three years, and we're not halfway through that yet, but progress is being made.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  But can ISIS be defeated with an air campaign? Are ground forces going to be necessary for this to work in the end?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Well, ground forces are being deployed in Iraq, where there is the Iraqi army, there are Kurdish forces who are helping to liberate these towns, like Tikrit and Baiji, which have already fallen. And ISIL have been pushed back out of those towns.

  Now, we want eventually the same to happen on the Syrian side of this very artificial line. But, meantime, there's a lot that airstrikes can do to help cut off ISIS' source of revenue and to help squeeze the noose around its headquarters in Raqqa.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Well, when is the right time for there to be a larger ground force presence in Syria, and will Britain be part of that, will the U.K. be part of that?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  We're not going to put our own troops on the ground there. And, indeed, in Iraq, they have made it very clear they don't want British or even — with respect, they don't want American troops there, because they feel that would simply radicalize Sunni opinion even more.

  In the end, this has to be done — this territory has to be liberated and held by local forces that enjoy the confidence of the local community, particularly the Sunni areas. And that has to be done locally. And the way to do that is to bring the civil war to an end and to use moderate Syrian groups to help defeat ISIS up in the northeast corner.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  But hasn't that been a goal for a long time, and it just hasn't been achieved?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Well, just in the last few months, we have seen real progress there, everybody involved now coming together, a conference in Saudi Arabia this week, just this week, bringing all the parties involved, and countries like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia that all have an interest now beginning to think their way through to a new Syria that is without Assad.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  But Assad, President Assad, shows no desire whatsoever to leave. He's been supported completely by Russia and by Iran. Is there new indication that that support has changed, is falling away?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Yes, we're beginning to see signs that that is weakening. People are beginning to think their way towards a different kind of Syria and recognize that he can't be part of the long-term future.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Is Russia's involvement militarily in Syria helping this campaign or hurting it?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  It's extremely unhelpful, because, of course, they came into the civil war, and they have been bombing moderate opposition groups that have been standing up to Assad, instead of attacking ISIS alongside the rest of us.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Let me ask you about domestic terrorism.

  Your country has — saw the real threat of domestic terrorism well before the United States did with this most recent attack in San Bernardino. What lessons has Great Britain, has the United Kingdom learned from your own experience?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Well, we have seen these — alongside your own shooting, we have had these terrible shootings in Paris just two hours away from us, and earlier in the summer, we had 30 of our own holiday-makers slaughtered on a beach in Tunisia.

  So this is very real to us. These attacks are directed, organized, inspired, financed from ISIS in its headquarters in Syria. And that's one reason why we have now committed ourselves to this campaign in full across both Iraq and Syria.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  What about those individuals who are inspired, who may not be directed by ISIS, but who are inspired by their message, by their philosophy to commit acts of terror in your country?

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Well, we have a program of — aimed at tackling radicalization. We call it the Prevent program to try and identify much earlier those who are likely to end up as potential terrorists, to identify them in the schools, at the colleges, in the madrasas, and working with moderate Muslim communities to see who these people are and see what we can do to make sure they don't go along that journey of being mildly, mildly Islamist to being extreme.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  I think it's widely accepted that there has been a greater effort to integrate Muslims into U.S. society than there has been in European countries, including the U.K.

  Are there lessons that your country is learning from the U.S. about integrating Muslims into society that makes you stronger when it comes to standing up to this extremist…

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Well, that is exactly the challenge.

  The United States is a great open society, and you have found a way of embracing different faiths and different immigrants from different countries and making them all Americans. And we need to work harder than that — about that in Western Europe, and avoiding the kind of ghettoization of different groups that can lead to these tensions, and make it more difficult to challenge extremist behavior later on.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Secretary of Defense Michael Fallon, we thank you for talking with us.

• MICHAEL FALLON:

  Thank you.