Obama Blames Intel Agencies for Underestimating ISIS

By Rick Moran  /  AmericanThinker.com

Having said that he only found out about many of the numerous scandals in his administration by watching it on TV, it shouldn’t surprise us that the president is blaming his intelligence agencies for not telling him about the capabilities of Islamic State.

If only the press had reported on the rise of the terrorist’s back in 2011.

Washington Times:

Mr. Obama told CNN in an interview that aired late Wednesday, “The ability of ISIL to not just mass inside of Syria, but then to initiate major land offensives that took Mosul [in Iraq], for example, that was not on my intelligence radar screen.”

But some critics are pointing to claims that the administration ignored warning signs from intelligence sources and allies such as Kurdish leaders about the Islamic State’s growing strength after 2011, when Mr. Obama withdrew all U.S. troops from Iraq.

Sherkoh Abbas, chairman of the Kurdistan National Assembly of Syria, said in 2014, “We approached the State Department about ISIS before ISIS was in the headlines, and we were ignored.”

In September 2014, Fox News reported that Mr. Obama had been told about the rise of the terrorist group in his classified daily intelligence briefings throughout the previous year.

In February 2014, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee on the emerging threat of the Islamic State.

The group “probably will attempt to take territory in Iraq and Syria to exhibit its strength in 2014, as demonstrated recently in Ramadi and Fallujah, and the group’s ability to concurrently maintain multiple safe havens in Syria,” Gen. Flynn testified. “Since the departure of U.S. forces at the end of 2011, [Islamic State] has exploited the permissive security environment to increase its operations and presence in many locations and also has expanded into Syria and Lebanon to inflame tensions throughout the region.”

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Gen. Flynn to serve as his national security adviser.

Jay Sekulow, general counsel at the American Center of Law and Justice and a frequent Obama critic, called the president’s latest assertions “unbelievable.”

Gen. Flynn’s testimony came about a month after Mr. Obama referred to the Islamic State in an interview as the junior varsity.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Mr. Obama had said. “I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland, versus jihadis who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”

Obama didn’t just miss the rise of ISIS, he denied its very nature. This, after being told that they were a threat to expand and dominate.

It’s been one of the more unseemly aspects of Obama’s presidency that he refuses to acknowledge his role in any of the major scandals and disasters that have befallen America on his watch. He still claims he was right in abandoning Iraq to the terrorists. His boasts about ending the war in Afghanistan have become equally hollow as he rushes troops back in to try and salvage the situation.

His fake “red line” in Syria with chemical weapons enabled Bashar Assad to kill thousands using chlorine gas. Right down the line, the president has not acknowledged his mistakes – either blaming others or insisting things are going well.

The “fake news” coming out of the White House will, thankfully, end in 6 weeks.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/12/obama_blames_intel_agencies_for_underestimating_isis.html#ixzz4Sad3wzNQ