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The United States' top military officer told American troops on a surprise visit to Baghdad yesterday that the momentum in the battle with Islamic State was "starting to turn", but predicted a drawn-out campaign lasting several years.
General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was visiting Iraq for the first time since President Barack Obama responded to Islamic State advances this summer by ordering troops back into a country they left in 2011.
Hours earlier, an Iraqi army colonel said security forces appeared close to retaking the country's biggest oil refinery at Baiji, which has been under siege for months by the militants.
Dempsey told the troops the US had helped Iraqi and Kurdish forces "pull Iraq back from the precipice".
"And now, I think it's starting to turn. So well done," Dempsey told a group of marines at the US embassy in Baghdad.

Islamic State has captured swathes of territory in both Iraq and Syria, where the US is also conducting air strikes with its allies in pursuit of Obama's declared objective to "degrade and destroy" the militants.
Dempsey said it had been crucial to show Islamic State was not an unstoppable, "10-foot-tall" force and instead "a bunch of midgets running around with a really radical ideology".
Dempsey repeatedly made the point that military force could not root out Islamic State unless Iraq's government manages to work across the Sunni-Shiite divide. Building trust would take time. So would the US mission, he said. "How long? Several years," he said.


Top US general Martin Dempsey tells troops in Iraq momentum is turning

US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey (right) and Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel testify before the House Armed Services Committee in Washington earlier this month. Photo: AFP

An Iraqi man passes by the site of a car bomb strike in Baghdad's Gorayaat neighborhood on Friday. Photo: AP

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The United States' top military officer told American troops on a surprise visit to Baghdad that the momentum in the battle with Islamic State was "starting to turn", but predicted a drawn-out campaign lasting several years.
