200 U.S. Troops Going to Ukraine

The Pentagon says 200 U.S. soldiers will participate in an exercise in western Ukraine starting next week. It would be the first presence of American ground troops in Ukraine since the crisis with Russian-backed separatists began.

The annual exercise, called Rapid Trident, involves forces from 15 nations and will not involve live firing of weapons. A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, said it will be a peacekeeping exercise with training through Sept. 26 in convoy operations, patrolling and methods of countering improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

Warren said the U.S. troops are from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Italy.

The Pentagon also announced it has delivered more non-lethal aid to the Ukrainian military, including helmets, explosive ordnance disposal robots, sleeping mats, jackets, radios, body armor and first-aid kits.

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President Obama said it is time for the United States to "start going on some offense" to stop the advances of the Islamic State in the Middle East as he prepared to announce the next phase of the U.S. effort that he said would require additional resources in the region.

"There's going to be a military element to it," Obama said in an interview to air Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "And what I want people to understand, though, is that over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL. We are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control. And ultimately we're going to defeat them."

In a wide-ranging interview with moderator Chuck Todd, Obama also signaled for the first time he is likely to dispatch military resources to help deal with an serious outbreak of Ebola in several African countries. That comes in the wake of his administration's request of Congress last week of $58 million to help deal with that medical crisis, which Obama emphasized was not a threat to the United States.

Obama's remarks on the security situation in the Middle East came as the U.S. military launched a series of new airstrikes late Saturday against the Islamic State, also known by the abbreviation ISIL, which had been threatening to seize control of a second giant dam that generates electricity and irrigation for much of the country. In the "Meet the Press" interview, which was conducted Saturday at the White House, the president did not specify what stepped-up military efforts he had authorized, but he emphasized, as he has repeatedly, that it would not include commitments of large numbers of U.S. combat troops on the ground....

The Obama administration is reportedly preparing a campaign to destroy the Islamic State militant group that could outlast the president's remaining time in office, according to a published report.

The New York Times, citing U.S. officials, reported late Sunday that the White House plan involves three phases that some Pentagon officials believe will require at least three years of sustained effort.

The first phase, airstrikes against Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is already under way in Iraq, where U.S. aircraft have launched 143 attacks since August 8. The second phase involves an intensified effort to train, advise, and equip the Iraqi Army, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, and any Sunni tribesmen willing to fight their ISIS co-religionists. The Times reports that this second phase will begin sometime after Iraq forms a new government, which could happen this week.

The third, and most politically fraught phase of the campaign, according to The Times, would require airstrikes against ISIS inside Syria. Last month, the government of Bashar Assad in Damascus warned the Obama administration not to launch airstrikes against ISIS in Syria without its permission....