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Obama Should Have Seen Iraq Unrest Coming, Experts Say
NBC News ^ | June 17, 2014 | Perry Bacon Jr.

Posted on 06/17/2014 5:15:39 AM PDT by Rennes Templar

Lawmakers from both parties and even some non-partisan analysts say the Obama administration should have better anticipated the rise of Sunni militants, who captured Iraq’s second-largest city last week and could pose a terrorism threat both within and outside the country’s borders.

With U.S. officials now scrambling to respond to the advances by The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the insurgent group that seized Mosul last week, some 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.

“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.”

The administration has argued that it had been monitoring the situation closely.

“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...", White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said at a press briefing.

(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bho44; iraq
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Incompetence or part of the plan?
1 posted on 06/17/2014 5:15:39 AM PDT by Rennes Templar
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To: Rennes Templar

esp since he was trying to support Isis in Syria, who knew they would break out and come down like hordes from the north into Iraq


2 posted on 06/17/2014 5:16:45 AM PDT by yldstrk ( My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: Rennes Templar

Both parties and non-partisan sources say Obama is at fault here? How did this story get bast the NBC editors? If its an Iraq problem, its always Bush’s fault.


3 posted on 06/17/2014 5:17:05 AM PDT by Opinionated Blowhard ("When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.")
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To: Rennes Templar

How can they expect him to anticipate anything when his only knowledge of such comes on the heels of breaking news stories. He finds out about things when media does.


4 posted on 06/17/2014 5:17:27 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Rennes Templar

Devastating bombings have been going on since we left. Where’s NATO? They’ve said nothing.


5 posted on 06/17/2014 5:17:35 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Rennes Templar

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/12/us-nato-iraq-idUSKBN0EN1BZ20140612


6 posted on 06/17/2014 5:18:51 AM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Rennes Templar

Obama? Where’s the CIA, NSA and other assets? Where’s the Iraqi air force? Why have we squandered so much money, men, women and innocent victims for? DISMANTLE this FEDGOV leviathan. It is not working for us.


7 posted on 06/17/2014 5:20:44 AM PDT by PGalt
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To: Sacajaweau

News this morning said that we saw ISIS on surveillance for weeks before this happened.

What about a secret early strike?


8 posted on 06/17/2014 5:21:13 AM PDT by BunnySlippers (I LOVE BULL MARKETS . . .)
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To: Rennes Templar

If an 18 hole golf course was built with the US Embassy Obama would still have 20,000 troops there.


9 posted on 06/17/2014 5:21:20 AM PDT by AU72
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To: PGalt

“Where’s the CIA, NSA and other assets?

Planning security for his next golf weekend?


10 posted on 06/17/2014 5:24:30 AM PDT by Rennes Templar (If Obama hated America and wanted to destroy her, what would he do differently?)
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To: PGalt

American intelligence missed the fall of the Soviet Union. Numerous Muslims with hotlines to Terrorist Central (Boston bombers, US Army officers) were ‘missed’.

Those gov orgs current purpose and energy are to suppress domestic dissent.


11 posted on 06/17/2014 5:29:58 AM PDT by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: Opinionated Blowhard

How did this story get past the editors?

Simple, NBC buries the story on their website and now they can claim they covered the story without ever mentioning it in their broadcasts.


12 posted on 06/17/2014 5:30:45 AM PDT by Obadiah (None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.)
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To: Rennes Templar

Like everything else, it was “unexpected” to this bunch of morons.


13 posted on 06/17/2014 5:30:56 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Obama's smidgens are coming home to roost.)
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To: Rennes Templar

Incompetence or part of the plan?
+++++++++
You beat me too it.

Look at history. Those Sunnis always stick together. When you have a Sunni muslim President of the United States do you really expect him to go all out to save the Shite government of Iraq?

You are right. This is all going per the plan.


14 posted on 06/17/2014 5:33:03 AM PDT by InterceptPoint
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To: Rennes Templar

Obama did know. Wasn’t Valerie Jarrett born and raised in Iran?


15 posted on 06/17/2014 5:34:39 AM PDT by Mercat
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To: Opinionated Blowhard; Rennes Templar
If its an Iraq problem, its always Bush’s fault.

What's the over/under on how long before the usual suspects come out and use the phony "Republican sequester" excuse, claiming that Boehner & the rest of the Republicans in the House had cut the Intel budget?!

16 posted on 06/17/2014 5:40:39 AM PDT by mellow velo
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To: jjotto
Those gov orgs current purpose and energy are to suppress domestic dissent.

Exactly. Control of the skies and you can't see/stop/crush invasion on the ground (Iraq, Texas, Arizona). TRAITORS.

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

17 posted on 06/17/2014 5:42:08 AM PDT by PGalt
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To: Rennes Templar
Obama Should Have Seen Iraq Unrest Coming, Experts Say

He did. And chose to do nothing about it.

18 posted on 06/17/2014 5:44:20 AM PDT by upchuck (... honesty is the never-ending rehearsal for those who want to be the friends of God...)
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To: Mercat

“Wasn’t Valerie Jarrett born and raised in Iran?”

‘Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran, to African American parents James E. Bowman and Barbara Taylor Bowman. Her father, a pathologist and geneticist, ran a hospital for children in Shiraz in 1956, as part of a program where American physicians and agricultural experts sought to help communitize developing countries’ health and farming efforts.’

Nothing worse than an Iranian communitizer.


19 posted on 06/17/2014 5:47:04 AM PDT by Rennes Templar (If Obama hated America and wanted to destroy her, what would he do differently?)
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To: Sacajaweau

“Where’s NATO?”

They’re still scratching their heads over Putin. They can’t even begin to think about ISIS.


20 posted on 06/17/2014 5:53:26 AM PDT by Rennes Templar (If Obama hated America and wanted to destroy her, what would he do differently?)
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