I just saw the video of last night's interview of State Department spokesman Jen Psaki by Megyn Kelly on her Fox News show. It was brutal, very polite but brutal nonetheless. The subject was Iraq and the comments released yesterday by former head of the CIA and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta. According to Panetta, when the USA was withdrawing its forces from Iraq, the Pentagon recommended keeping 25,000 or so troops in that country to guarantee that the terrorists could not regain any power there. The USA was negotiating an agreement with the Iraqi government that would allow the troops to stay. It was a political risk for the Iraqi government to agree that American forces would stay, so there needed to be a large enough benefit for the Iraqis if they were going to enter into such an agreement. The problem, however, was that president Obama would only agree to keep 5000 troops in the country. Obama overruled the recommendation of the Pentagon, the Secretary of Defense and the State Department for a much larger force. By so limiting the number of troops, Obama made it impossible for the Iraqi government to agree to their staying. The political risk for the Iraqi government by giving special status to America troops would have come with a substantial political cost, but the gain that came from having just 5000 troops would not be enough to justify such costs.
Megyn Kelly asked Jen Psaki about what had happened. Psaki had no coherent response. Oh, she threw out a few talking points, but they did not answer how Obama prevented the agreement with the Iraqi government. Then Kelly replayed some old video in which George Bush warned that failure to leave an adequate force in Iraq would (1) let the terrorists regroup and re-establish a safe haven in Iraq; (2) allow the terrorists to kill huge numbers of people across the region; and (3) force American troops to have to return to Iraq to fight a much stronger and well established terrorist enemy they had already defeated once at great cost.
It almost made me sorry for Psaki. She had no answers. It just further established the undeniable fact that Obama does not know what he is doing.
Megyn Kelly asked Jen Psaki about what had happened. Psaki had no coherent response. Oh, she threw out a few talking points, but they did not answer how Obama prevented the agreement with the Iraqi government. Then Kelly replayed some old video in which George Bush warned that failure to leave an adequate force in Iraq would (1) let the terrorists regroup and re-establish a safe haven in Iraq; (2) allow the terrorists to kill huge numbers of people across the region; and (3) force American troops to have to return to Iraq to fight a much stronger and well established terrorist enemy they had already defeated once at great cost.
It almost made me sorry for Psaki. She had no answers. It just further established the undeniable fact that Obama does not know what he is doing.
No comments:
Post a Comment