JOHN DICKERSON: The offensive in Mosul is taking place as American forces are picking up the tempo against ISIS in all theaters. We sat down with Defense Secretary James Mattis at the US Military Academy at West Point Saturday and asked him about the new strategy.
SECRETARY JAMES MATTIS: Our strategy right now is to accelerate the campaign against ISIS. It is a threat to all civilized nations. And the bottom line is we are going to move in an accelerated and reinforced manner, throw them on their back foot. We have already shifted from attrition tactics where we shove them from one position to another in Iraq and Syria, to annihilation tactics where we surround them. Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa. We're not going to allow them to do so. We're going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate.
JOHN DICKERSON: Explain what it means to be moving in an "annihilation" posture as opposed to attrition?
SECRETARY JAMES MATTIS: Well, attrition is where you keep pushing them out of the areas that they're in, John. And what we intend to do by surrounding them is to not allow them to fall back, thus, reinforcing themselves as they get smaller and smaller, making the fight tougher and tougher.
You see that right now, for example, in western Mosul that is surrounded and the Iraqi-- security forces are moving against them. Tal Afar is now surrounded. We have got efforts underway right now to surround their self-declared caliphate capital of Raqqa. That surrounding operation is going on. And once surrounded, then we'll go in and clean them out.
JOHN DICKERSON: One of the things you have mentioned in this new accelerated tempo is that the president has delegated authority to the right level. What does that mean?
SECRETARY JAMES MATTIS: When you're in operations, the best thing you can do at the top level is get the strategy right. You have to get the big ideas right, you have to determine what is the policy, what is the level of effort you're willing to commit to it? And then you delegate to those who have to execute that strategy to the appropriate level. What's the appropriate level? It's the level where people are trained and equipped to take decisions so we move swiftly against the enemy.
There is no corporation in the world that would, in a competitive environment, try and concentrate all decisions at the corporate level.
But I would point out here that we have not changed the rules of engagement. There is no relaxation of our attention to protect the innocent. We do everything we can to protect the civilians, and actually lowering-- delegating the authority to the lower level allows us to do this better.
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