President Barack Obama has made headlines for his inability to anticipate the rise of Sunni militants in Iraq, according to NBC News. Due to lack of preparation when dealing with the militants, who captured Iraq’s second-largest city last week, the U.S. is set to send 275 troops into the troubled country for embassy security. More info after the jump.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is the name of the terrorist group that has put a lot of pressure on the President. According to a source, critics say there was either a failure by U.S. intelligence officials in assessing the strength of ISIS or Obama and his policy team didn’t react quickly enough after the group seized Mosul.
“It was very clear to people how bad these guys are,” Michael Leiter, a former top counterterrorism official in both the Bush and Obama administrations, said in an interview. “I don’t know if this was a tactical error or an intelligence error.”
Any question about the group’s capabilities or intentions should have been answered when the militants took Fallujah in January, Leiter said.
“I think our intelligence has failed us miserably, from not being aware of the threat that we’ve faced and how this could unfold as quickly as it has. This has been planned for quite some time,” Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said on NBC’s Meet The Press Sunday. “My first thing to recommend to the president is get your intelligence group back on track, making sure that we have the intel that we need for whatever options we have, that are going to be accurate….
“We have been very aware and have discussed here and in other venues the challenge posed by the war in Syria, and the extremist activity there, and the ISIS as it formed and moved across the border into Iraq,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said at a press briefing. “And that has always been a great concern. That is why we have stepped up the assistance that we’ve been providing to the Iraqi security forces.”
