Washington – President Barack Obama said Sunday he agrees with intelligence leaders who believe the United States not only underestimated the threat of militants seeking to form the Islamic State group but also overestimated the ability and will of the Iraqi army to fight.
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Obama spoke to CBS’ “60 Minutes” during an interview that is to air Sunday. The network released excerpts ahead of time. In the interview, Obama was asked how Islamic State group fighters were able to control so much land in Syria and Iraq. He said U.S. military forces with the help of Sunni tribes were able to quash al-Qaida fighters, who went “back underground.”
“During the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos,” Obama said.
He called Syria ground zero for jihadis around the world. He said military force is necessary to shrink their capacity, cut off financing and eliminate the flow of foreign fighters.
At the same time, political solutions are needed in the Middle East that accommodate both Sunnis and Shiites. He said conflicts between Islam’s two largest sects are the biggest cause of conflict throughout the world.
Wow, billions spent on US intelligence and blind Freddy could have told him this.
Obama “misjudged” almost everything he touched abroad and in the United States.
Amazing how it’s always someone else’s fault, not his. The CIA told him about the threat for TWO years…and he was the one who refused to keep some of our troops in Iraq. This is very laughable.
good morning mr obama!! your job is to prevent war and killings before it starts…. as we see hashem is the one who rules the world the big america didnt see such s simple thing coming up….