White House backtracks on Obama ISIS comments
By Susan Crabtree | September 29, 2014 | 2:28 pm
Photo - White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday said Obama is commander in chief and recognizes that he is ultimately responsible for protecting the national security interests of all Americans around the world. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday said Obama is commander in chief and recognizes that...
The White House is downplaying comments President Obama recently made about the intelligence community’s failure to warn of the full threat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria posed to the region and the United States.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Monday said Obama is commander in chief and recognizes that he is ultimately responsible for protecting the national security interests of all Americans around the world.
“There’s no question that he relies on important advice form the leaders in our military, form leaders in our diplomatic corps and from leaders in our intelligence community,” he told reporters at his daily press briefing.
“It’s only because of the strong, sound advice that he has received from members of the intelligence community that we have had some success early on in our efforts to combat the threat from [Islamic State],” he added.
Earnest also said Obama maintains full confidence in the intelligence he is receiving from his national security team and argued that “nobody predicted the speed and pace with which [Islamic State] would advance across the Syrian border with Iraq and make dramatic gains across the countryside.”
Obama’s remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night angered some members of the intelligence community by appearing to blame them for failing to adequately recognize the full threat the Islamic State posed.
The president said he agreed with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s recent assessment that “we underestimated the Islamic State.”
“Jim Clapper has acknowledged that I think they underestimated ... what had been taking place in Syria,” Obama said.
Pressed by interviewer Steve Kroft on whether Clapper also had blamed the failure of the Iraqi army, whose soldiers refused to fight Islamic State fighters invading from Syria, Obama said, that’s “absolutely true.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/white-house-backtracks-on-obama-isis-comments/article/2554105
