ISIS fighters in Iraq
WASHINGTON – Is the West winning the war against ISIS or not? It’s hard to tell, judging by remarks from both the president and the CIA chief.
After meeting with his National Security Council on Tuesday, President Obama summed up the war against the Islamic State by implying the U.S.-led coalition was winning, declaring, “In short, our coalition continues to be on offense. ISIL is on defense.”
But, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday morning, CIA Director John Brennan did not portray the coalition as winning, at all. In fact, he described no progress in blunting the Islamic State’s power.
“Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach,” testified Brennan.
CIA Director John Brennan
He even suggested the coalition was a long way from winning, adding, “The resources needed for terrorism are very modest, and the group would have to suffer even heavier losses of territory, manpower, and money for its terrorist capacity to decline significantly.”
Noting the distinct discrepancy in the assessments, Marine Corps University professor, and frequent guest analyst on Fox News, Sebastian Gorka posted on Facebook, ” I guess President Obama missed the memo?”
On Tuesday, Obama recited a laundry list of items suggesting the coalition was winning:
- “ISIL is under more pressure than ever before.”
- “ISIL continues to lose key leaders.”
- “ISIL continues to lose ground in Iraq.”
- “As ISIL continues to lose territory, it also continues to lose the money that is its lifeblood.”
- “ISIL is now effectively cut off from the international financial system.”
- “ISIL’s ranks are shrinking as well.”
- “Their morale is sinking.”
Obama concluded, “[T]his continues to be a difficult fight – but we are making significant progress,” and, “This campaign at this stage is firing on all cylinders.”
Brennan dutifully recycled most of those talking points during his testimony, and even reiterated Obama’s assertion that ISIS is on the defensive. But he also made key points that seemed to severely contradict or undercut that rosy assessment.
The CIA director told senators that even if ISIS loses territory, that will not diminish its influence or strength, and may even increase terrorism, testifying, “[T]he group’s foreign branches and global networks can help preserve its capacity for terrorism regardless of events in Iraq and Syria. In fact, as the pressure mounts on ISIL, we judge that it will intensify its global terror campaign to maintain its dominance of the global terrorism agenda.”
Brennan said nothing to suggest the terror threat from ISIS has diminished, and, in fact, said it is actively preparing to attack, using immigration to infiltrate the West. And that the terrorists could include Westerners.
“We judge that ISIL is training and attempting to deploy operatives for further attacks. ISIL has a large cadre of Western fighters who could potentially serve as operatives for attacks in the West. And the group is probably exploring a variety of means for infiltrating operatives into the West, including refugee flows, smuggling routes, and legitimate methods of travel.”
Brennan also made remarks that would seem to validate critics of the president that “Obama’s foreign policy set the world on fire.”
The CIA director testified, essentially, that he’d never seen the world in such a mess, or so dangerous, telling senators, “And, as I often tell young officers at CIA, I have never seen a time when our country faced such a wide variety of threats to our national security.”
The nation’s top spy then described a world that did sound very much on fire.
“Run your fingers along almost any portion of the map from the Asia Pacific to North Africa and you will quickly find a flashpoint with global implications. China is modernizing its military and extending its reach in the South China Sea. North Korea is expanding its nuclear weapons program. Russia is threatening its neighbors and aggressively reasserting itself on the global stage.”
He even said the chaos has spread to the virtual world.
“And then there is the cyber domain, where states and sub-national actors are threatening financial systems, transportation networks, and organizations of every stripe, inside government and out.”
from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/cia-chief-isis-terror-reach-capability-not-reduced/
from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/cia-chief-isis-terror-reach-capability-not-reduced/
No comments:
Post a Comment