The U.S. military general in charge of the air war over Iraq and Syria said today that carpet bombing would not be an effective tool to fight ISIS.
Asked about the claims of Sen. Ted Cruz and other presidential candidates that they would carpet bomb ISIS, Lieutenant General Charles Brown said that, "carpet bombing is not effective for the operation we're actually executing."
ISIS "doesn't actually mass itself where you could actually even use that kind of tactic, and that's a tactic that is really not effective for the fight we're actually executing today," he said.
Related: Cruz Won't Back Down on Carpet Bombing ISIS
ISIS puts themselves in "population centers" so with the GPS-guided munitions the U.S. uses they can "drop one or two munitions in an area and actually do the job well without having to do carpet bombing," Brown said.
He added that considering the law of armed conflict and the U.S. effort to minimize civilian casualties, "carpet-bombing is just, in my opinion, not the way to go."
During a debate last month, Cruz said that he will "apologize to nobody" for that promise.
