US top officer General Martin Dempsey considered that his country’s military action in Iraq has a “better chance of success” than the 2003 war there because American troops are playing a “supporting role” to local forces.

US top officer General Martin Dempsey considered that his country’s military action in Iraq has a “better chance of success” than the 2003 war there because American troops are playing a “supporting role” to local forces from the start.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also voiced cautious optimism that Iraqi forces were gaining strength and predicted they would make progress on the battlefield in the coming months against the Takfiri group operating in Iraq and Syria, ISIL.

Asked at a Washington conference why Americans should expect the latest US intervention in Iraq to go better this time, Dempsey said "we think we're taking a different approach."

As an example, Dempsey cited an episode that played out during his recent visit to Iraq over the weekend.

The Iraqi army asked for US assistance to parachute supplies to about 1,300 Kurdish forces on Mount Sinjar in the country's north, he said. But the American commander in Baghdad pointed out that the Iraqis had a C-130J cargo plane and trained pilots that were capable of carrying out the mission.

"As this unwound, what the commander on the ground ... said was, 'We'll provide you with the expertise for what you don't have, but you have what you need to accomplish this mission,'" Dempsey said.

"And so the only thing we provided at that point was the expertise to actually rig the parachute extraction system that would do the air drop."

He noted that the outcome reflected the difference in the US approach compared to the 2003 US invasion and the occupation that followed.

"So they do what they can do, and we fill in the gaps and continue to build their capability," said Dempsey, who led troops in Iraq in the previous conflict.