"They're killing us now. Their will is not broken. They mean it. If they have their way, there'll be no science or math in school. There'll be no women in school," he said.
Mattis added that it was important to recruit and select the right people and to give them training and language skills so they understood whom they were fighting.
"As much emotional ... satisfaction as you get from really whacking somebody [who abused women], the main effort, ladies and gentlemen, is to diminish the conditions that drive people to sign up for these kinds of insurgencies," Mattis said.
Last year, on his second tour in Iraq, Mattis said he embraced a "hearts and minds" posture, lecturing troops to make friends with Iraqis. He laid down strict rules for when troops could fire and required commanders to seek his permission before using artillery.
Soon after the fall of Baghdad, Mattis called for a criminal investigation into how some Marines were treating prisoners, and that led to several courts-martial.
He also led an overhaul of procedures for handling prisoners to avoid mistreatment.
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Times staff writer Tony Perry, traveling with troops in Iraq, contributed to this report.
