Giuliani: Take ISIS 'Seriously' on Threats in United States
Wednesday, May 6, 2015 01:00 PM
By: Sandy Fitzgerald
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has a warning when it comes to Islamic State (ISIS) claims that there are fighters ready to stage attacks in the United States: "Take them seriously."
"Don't discount it," Giuliani told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program Wednesday, when discussing ISIS claims of having several fighters ready to strike. "It may be an understatement. It reminds me in a strange way of a Mafia case, where they put 10, 12 people in different places."
He said that international terrorism "is not a strong area" for President Barack Obama, who "tends to get weak, certainly in this language where we are talking about Islamic extremists."
But ISIS, is "giving you their name ... you can't have a better definition of Islamic extremist terrorism than the Islamic State," Giuliani added.
On Tuesday, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a weekend attack at a center near Dallas that was exhibiting cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad — though it offered no evidence of a direct link to the attackers, who it called "two soldiers of the caliphate."
Unlike Obama, "the FBI has no confusion about this; the CIA has no confusion about this," said Giuliani. "I think the fact that they (ISIS) made this announcement is in some ways helpful, because it puts local law enforcement on alert."
The nation needs to rely on its police officers as its eyes and ears, the former mayor said.
"Remember, we only have about 15,000 [or] 16,000 FBI agents; we have over 800,000 uniformed police officers, not to count all the private security and everything else," said Giuliani. "We can make those people our eyes and ears. If we could teach them the precursors of terrorism, the things to look for."
And although there are many problems in the United States, Giuliani said he believes the police can improve like anyone else, and even if police officers were perfect, there would still be problems with crime in the United States.
He further hailed NYPD officer Brian Moore, who died on Monday after being shot while in an unmarked police car, saying that the young man did not know that he was not going to come home when he went out to duty the day he was shot.
"Every single police officer's family is living with that same pressure," said Giuliani. "My grandmother lived with that pressure for three of her sons. People don't know it unless they live it. These are good people who are trying to save us, and keep us safe and secure against some very bad people. If we have an occasional one that's a bad guy or a criminal as I did, you put them in prison."
But still, he believes that while he was mayor, the New York police "knew where I had their back, and sometimes I took a beating for it."
Giuliani also commented on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who ran against him in 2008 for the GOP nomination.
"He was a lot of fun to run with," said Giuliani. "John McCain and I and him had a lot of good jokes together. His was the Bushes."
Giuliani said he also likes former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
He also addressed the ongoing controversy concerning Hillary Clinton, her records, and the contributions to the Clinton Foundation.
"These are tremendous blows that in most cases would absolutely down a candidate," he said. "I mean, [as] the attorney general when I was in the Reagan administration, [had] I destroyed half of my records, I don't think I would have been mayor of New York. I'm not sure where I'd be but it wouldn't have been mayor of New York.
'And if my wife was going out and getting money from all the companies I was making decisions on when I was our U.S. attorney, and getting paid a fortune from them, even though I said we never talked about it ... I would have done a book on prison reform."
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Rudy-Giuliani-ISIS-Islamic-State-United-States/2015/05/06/id/642937/
