“It is an Iraqi decision but we don’t want to do anything until they are ready and can win decisively,” a military official explained to the Daily Beast. “They cannot now.”

It’s another sign that the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS isn’t going nearly as smoothly as the American government had hoped. At the Pentagon Friday, Defense Department spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby shied away from any kind of timeline, saying: “I can’t put a date certain…nor say April is out.”

Rather, he suggested that the Iraqi forces were not imminently ready for such an offensive.

“I don’t think we are there yet,” Kirby said. “There are gaps and seams that need to be closed.”