US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey discussed the crisis in Iraq at a news conference on Thursday but claimed they did not know how the US would contribute to the battle against the al-Qaeda-linked Takfiri forces.

Dempsey mentioned that the US government was contemplating airstrikes, but did not want to give too much away. “What will we be willing to contribute to that cause?” he said. “That’s not a question that we’re prepared to answer just yet.”

This is while there are currently over 800 military advisers and other troops in Iraq, with the vast majority arriving in the past three weeks.

However, Hagel and Dempsey were keen not to give any guarantees that more US troops may be sent to Iraq.

“We have one mission today, and that’s assessments,” Hagel said. “I don’t know what the assessments are going to come back and say or what they would recommend.”

“We have a much better intelligence picture than we did two weeks ago, and it continues to get better,” Dempsey said. “The complexity, though, is the intermingling of groups. . . . And that’s going to be a tough challenge to separate them, if we were to take a decision to strike.”

Dempsey further added that intensified surveillance flights and the deployment of US advisers and liaison officers had improved the Pentagon’s view of the battlefield, noting however that it was still difficult to sort out hard-core terrorists from ordinary residents.

The top American commander, who served on a number of tours of Iraq, said ISIL could be defeated, adding that they were “stretched” after occupying so much territory and that their supply lines were vulnerable to disruption.

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