CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait — As Iraqi troops fight to recapture the Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi from the Islamic State, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter met Monday with U.S. troops and high-ranking officials in neighboring Kuwait to discuss the fight against the terrorist group.

Seated around a large T-shaped table for the hours-long, closed-door session were 25 military and diplomatic officials Carter called his “Team America.”

Kuwait is home to nearly 10,000 American troops, as well as the headquarters of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, which is managing the campaign against Islamic State militants.

Carter, who stepped into his new job last week, traveled to Camp Arifijan to confer with senior military and diplomatic experts and develop his own assessment of the U.S. war strategy in the region. [see box]

There are about 3,000 American troops in Iraq training and advising Iraqi forces and providing force protection. During a troop talk before the big confab, Carter was asked if the cap on the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, set at 3,100 by President Barack Obama, should be raised.

“I don’t have a good answer for you right now,” Carter acknowledged, saying “that’s one of the things I want to climb on top of” during the meeting with senior experts.

When asked what it would take for him to recommend sending American ground troops into direct combat with the Islamic State, an option that Obama has so far ruled out, Carter sounded a note of caution.

“We need to be convinced that any use of our forces is necessary, is going to be sufficient, [and] that we’ve thought through not just the first step but the second step and the third step,” he said, “so that we if we do ask you to do something, we’re asking you to do something that is going to succeed and it makes sense and ... it is necessary to take the risk that you’re taking. That’s my responsibility.”

Carter said he would discuss the potential follow-on effects of various policy options during the high-level meeting.

The Pentagon chief assured the troops that “we’ll do what it takes to defeat ISIL,” using a common acronym to refer to the Islamic State.

“We will deliver lasting defeat, make no doubt. And when that happens … [it] will be your achievement,” he told them.

After the meeting, Carter told reports that the anti-ISIL coalition has “the ingredients of the strategy” right, but there are some things that can be done better.

“ISIL’s use of social media will be pressing us to be more creative in combating it in the information dimension, as well as the physical dimension,” he said.

He also suggested that some nations in the coalition need to be doing more, saying there was a “need to leverage further the individual contributions of each” member.

Carter did not identify specific countries he believes are not contributing enough.

He made it clear that he expects the coalition to win the fight.

“The discussion indicated clearly to me that this group is hardly invincible,” he told reporters. “Our efforts to date have already been having some important impacts. Our global coalition is up to the task, and so is American leadership.”

Carter said he will host more consultations like Monday’s meeting in the future, and will bring in outside experts to contribute to the discussions.

The commander of CJTF-OIR offered an upbeat assessment of the war effort, especially the situation within Iraq. Lt. Gen. James Terry told reporters traveling with Carter that the Islamic State was “on the defensive” and their freedom of movement was increasingly limited by American airstrikes and Iraqi military efforts.

Less than two weeks ago, Islamic State fighters were able to capture the town of al-Baghdadi in the vicinity of Iraq’s Al-Asad Air Base, where several hundred U.S. troops are training Iraqi soldiers. The base itself has come under frequent indirect fire attack with rockets and mortars. Earlier this month, militants breached the perimeter with the aid of suicide bombers, but Iraqi forces turned back the attackers before they got within striking distance of the American contingent.

Terry told reporters that the Iraqi security forces have launched an operation to recapture the town. The attack is being carried out by Iraq army’s 7th Division, utilizing mechanized forces, counterterrorism units and some tribal fighters.

U.S. troops at al-Asad are advising the Iraqis in their effort, and CENTCOM is conducting airstrikes to support the operation.

“I’m pretty confident that the Iraqis will retake this,” he said.

Terry suggested the group’s gains were being inflated by the group’s propaganda and the media.

“They are conducting what I would call local kinds of attacks,” he said, “and then they use that to feed into the information environment and create a mystique that’s somewhat larger than it is.”

harper.jon@stripes.com Twitter: @JHarperStripes

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