Top US general Dempsey in Iraq to assess ISIL airstrike campaign

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, America's top military leader, arrived in Iraq on Saturday on a surprise visit, his first since a U.S.-led coalition began launching airstrikes against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). 

The visit by Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, came just two days after he told Congress that the United States would consider dispatching a modest number of American forces to fight with Iraqi troops against ISIL.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama ordered 1,500 non-combat forces to Iraq to boost its advisory mission and start training Iraqi forces. That's in addition to the 1,400 troops already there. 

Iraqi military and security forces were overmatched in the face of ISIL's stunning offensive this summer, when it captured most of northern and western Iraq, including the country's second-largest city Mosul.

Dempsey's spokesman, Air Force Col. Ed Thomas, said the general planned to visit U.S. troops, commanders and Iraqi leaders.

"The primary purpose of his visit is to get a firsthand look at the situation in Iraq, receive briefings, and get better sense of how the campaign is progressing."

The visit so far has included talks in Baghdad with U.S. Ambassador Stuart E. Jones and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, Thomas said. Iraqi state television said Dempsey and al-Abadi have met, but gave no further details. 

On Thursday, Dempsey told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee that Iraqi forces were doing a better job now, while saying an effort to move into Mosul or to restore the border with Syria would require more complex operations.

He also said that America has a modest force in Iraq now, and that "any expansion of that, I think, would be equally modest."

"I just don't foresee a circumstance when it would be in our interest to take this fight on ourselves with a large military contingent," he said.

U.S. and coalition forces have conducted about 900 air strikes in Iraq and Syria as they contend with an estimated ISIL force of 15,000 to 18,000 fighters.

Dempsey's visit comes just one day after Iraqi forces drove ISIL out of a strategic oil refinery town north of Baghdad, scoring their biggest battlefield victory yet. 

On Saturday, state television said government forces were in full control of the refinery, Iraq's largest, which lies some 15 miles north of the town of Beiji, which ISIL seized in June. 

The recapture of Beiji marks the latest in a series of setbacks for the jihadi group, which has lost hundreds of fighters to U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, particularly in the group's stalled advance on the Syrian town of Kobani. 

Wire services