Feinstein breaks with Obama: 'ISIL is not contained'
By Eliza Collins
11/16/15 01:02 PM EST
Updated 11/16/15 01:35 PM EST
Sen. Dianne Feinstein sharply contradicted President Barack Obama on Monday, disagreeing with his claim that the Islamic State is "contained."
“I’ve never been more concerned,” the California Democrat and Intelligence Committee ranking member told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC Monday. “I read the intelligence faithfully. ISIL is not contained. ISIL is expanding.”
“They just put out a video saying it is their intent to attack this country. I think we have to be prepared,” she continued. On Monday, ISIL warned it could attack Washington if the U.S. participated in France's response to the events in Paris.
"We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day God willing, like France's and by God, as we struck France in the center of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington," a man in the video said, according to Reuters, which could not verify the video's authenticity.
Feinstein said she hoped that the U.S. would work with allies to put together “coalitions and attack plans in more than one place at a given time.”
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While she said didn’t know the exact number of troops that were needed in Syria, Feinstein urged President Obama to send more than the few dozen he has announced so far. “We certainly need more than 50 specials ops and we need the ability to really make a difference on the ground,” she said.
“Candidly, I don’t think bombing runs alone, we have done about 8,000 now, can really make a difference. So we’re going to have to look at some new themes and I think we will have to listen very carefully to our military people and ask for the kind of precise military strategy and tactics that might be able to really contain ISIL and defeat it,” she said.
Feinstein also said that people can’t be confident that there is no threat to the U.S. homeland, despite assurances by officials.
“I don’t think we can be credible with that,” Feinstein said. “They are on a march. I think we have to recognize this."
Obama was widely criticized following the attacks in Paris for his claim, a day earlier in an interview with ABC News, that ISIL had been "contained."
The White House has sought to clarify the comment, which Republicans jumped on over the weekend. Donald Trump said Obama was "just so bad!" in a tweet Saturday morning.
“When I said that we are containing their spread in Iraq and Syria, in fact they control less territory than they did last year," Obama said during a press conference from the G-20 summit in Antalya, Turkey on Monday.
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"And the more we shrink that territory, the less they can pretend that they are somehow a functioning state," he said. "And the more it becomes apparent that they are simply a network of killers who are brutalizing local populations, that allows us to reduce the flow of foreign fighters, which then over time will lessen the numbers of terrorists who can potentially carry out terrible acts like they did in Paris. And that’s what we did with Al Qaeda.”
“That doesn’t mean, by the way, that Al Qaeda no longer possesses the capabilities of potentially striking the west … we are consistently working to disrupt those acts," he continued.
On Sunday, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the president was "referring very specifically to the question of ISIL's geographic expansion in Iraq and Syria."
"They had been on the march in both Iraq and Syria for some time. But starting a year ago, we were able to halt that expansion," he told NBC's Chuck Todd.
"So we have been able to apply pressure, take back territory, but at the same time, of course, we are seeing ISIL aimed to project power beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria most tragically in the attacks in Paris," Rhodes said.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/dianne-feinstein-obama-isil-215935#ixzz3rjlLPe57
