Marco Rubio: Airstrikes against ISIS should target oil plants
The United States has conducted thousands of air strikes against ISIS, but Sen. Marco Rubio said that they're not "well targeted" and should focus more on destroying the oil infrastructure controlled by the extremist group.
"The rules of engagement - it's not allowed [airstrikes] to be as successful as necessary," Rubio said in an interview with NBC that aired Thursday morning. "They've unnecessarily avoided taking strikes because they're concerned if they blow up the oil plant, there might be civilians, even one, killed. That's a legitimate concern we have, but we must destroy the revenue source, which is the ability to generate oil."
The United States has since last year targeted airstrikes at oil refineries held by ISIS. Just recently, the Pentagon stepped up the strikes against ISIS's oil infrastructure.
Two recent airstrikes, CBS News Pentagon correspondent David Martin reported earlier this week, have destroyed almost 500 tanker trucks ISIS uses to smuggle oil and sell it on the black market. By one estimate, these attacks have destroyed roughly half the trucks ISIS uses to bring in $1 million a day in revenues. To avoid civilian casualties, U.S. planes first dropped leaflets warning the drivers and then conducted staffing runs to scare them away.
As Rubio suggested, the U.S. until recently avoided targeting oil tanker trucks for fear of killing civilians. However, the Pentagon has loosened its rules on civilian casualties.
Rubio has previously said he'd increase the number of U.S. special forces fighting ISIS on the ground, but in the interview that aired Thursday, he declined to say how many.
"The goal is to have enough special operators on the ground to support a coalition of 25,000, 30,000 Sunni Arabs on the ground fighting," he said.