New Analysis: After fall of Ramadi, U.S. beset with challenges in fighting IS

The fight against the Islamic State (IS) has just got harder after the recent fall of Ramadi, a provincial capital in Iraq, and the U.S.-led coalition will continue to face numerous challenges in a war that could be an uphill task.

The IS, which has overrun vast swaths of Syria and northern Iraq, has proven to be a dangerous foe, and the fight against the terror group has posed numerous problems for Washington, which has yet to find a solution.

One major problem is what pilots of the U.S.-led coalition have grumblingly described as a sluggish bureaucracy that did not give them clearance in time to launch airstrikes against the targets, allowing IS fighters to get away.

David Deptula, a former director of the Combined Air Operations Center in Afghanistan, told the Fox News that U.S.-led airstrikes during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s averaged over 1,000 per day, and in the first days of the U.S. war in Iraq in 2003, airstrikes averaged 800 per day.

By sharp contrast, he added, airstrikes against the IS, 80 percent of which are carried out by U.S. military aircraft, average just 14 per day.

Appearing Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, an outspoken critic of U.S. President Barack Obama's handling of the campaign against the IS, claimed that 75 percent of pilots returned without dropping any ordinance as a result of delays in the chain of command.

Wayne White, former deputy director of the U.S. State Department's Middle East Intelligence Office, noted that there have been instances where important concentrations of IS combat vehicles and fighters were spotted, but not struck, because of non-combatants close by.

Although it is an extremely difficult issue, perhaps there should be further deliberations over just how much such restraint can be afforded, since the IS knows this and uses this restraint to its advantage, White told Xinhua.

He also called for more discussions about whether to train Iraqi troops in the laser identification of frontline targets.

An answer, he said, may be found in extensively leafleting IS-held areas before airstrikes with warnings that any civilians near IS equipment or fighters will be in danger of becoming casualties.

Meanwhile, critics fret the U.S. strategy against IS may not be working.

While Obama's strategy entails building capacity in Iraq's army, bombing IS targets and reconciling relations between Shiites and Sunnis, the last part has so far seen little success.

Critics are also blasting Obama with what they said appears to be putting the issue on the backburner, noting that in a recent speech he called climate change a threat to national and global security.

Earlier this week, Iraq's army launched a counter-offensive to retake Ramadi, but some experts said the United States must play a greater role.

Rick Brennan, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, called for advisors to be embedded at the battalion level.

Iraq has been suffering from seemingly endless chaos and violence, including suicide bombings and armed clashes between different religious factions, since the United States opened the Pandora's Box in 2003 by invading the oil-rich country to overthrow the government of President Saddam Hussein under the unfounded excuse of ridding it of weapons of mass destruction.

The IS, previously known as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), rose from the chaos after the U.S. invasion and became the al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq in 2004.

After merging with several other insurgent groups, the IS has gained momentum since early 2014 by taking over large areas of Iraq and Syria. The U.S. responded by leading a multinational coalition to help Iraqi forces fight the IS, mainly through launching airstrikes, but has failed to block its advances. Endi