Senate Homeland Security chairman calls for war against ISIL

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Monday the United States should invade territory held by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Johnson said the Obama administration’s approach — attempting to contain the threat using airstrikes without ground troops — is naive given the threat ISIL poses to the rest of the world, including the United States.

“It’s high time that we make a commitment in the world that Islamic terrorists have got to be wiped off the face of the planet,” the Wisconsin Republican said in a telephone interview. “Because if we don’t, every day that ISIS survives, every day that they are not overtly losing, they are perceived as winners and perceived as winning and they’ll continue to inspire adherents to this barbarity.”

Johnson wants the United States to assemble a coalition, much like the one former president George H.W. Bush put together for the Gulf War in 1990 to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

“It’s not a perfect solution, but you have to start at the head: We’ve got to destroy the caliphate, which means we’ve got to take back the territory, because a caliphate does not exist without the territory,” he said.

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Johnson was briefed by Homeland Security officials on Saturday and said he expects updates in the coming days. Right now, he said he believes the United States is dangerously vulnerable to an ISIL attack. The group released a video Monday promising attacks against any nation that participates in strikes against the Islamic State, including the United States “at its center in Washington," a militant said in the video.

Johnson said U.S. border security needs to be strengthened and he plans to hold a hearing as soon as possible to investigate the refugee resettlement process in the United States. One of the Paris attackers had a Syrian passport, and his fingerprints match those of someone who traveled through Greece last month, according to Parisian authorities.

Johnson said he believes the terror threat is more grave than ever. In addition to the Paris attacks Friday, Johnson pointed to the bombings in Beirut on Thursday that left 40 people dead and the downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt earlier this month.

“They’re not contained, they are spreading, they’re metastasizing,” Johnson said. “They’re inspiring more and more of these actions. Just take a look at it.”

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He added that the attacks also are not as sophisticated as they may seem — that the weapons used are available on the open market, as are the materials used to build explosives.

“There’s not a high level of sophistication, and that’s the whole point is, I think we delude ourselves if we’re thinking that this isn’t possible here in America,” Johnson said. “It is possible. And so we have got to take strong action that I do not believe we’ve taken so far in this country to really counter the threat, the growing threat that ISIS really does represent to the world, to the United States, to basic civilization.”

At a news conference Monday in Turkey, President Obama said the United States has the “right strategy and we're going to see it through" in an effort to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS without sending in U.S. ground troops. He said the United States will continue to launch air strikes and work with allies on intelligence and training local forces.