The parents of James Foley, the freelance journalist beheaded by ISIS in August, are speaking out against the Obama administration and its failed attempt to salvage their son’s life.
In an interview with Fox News’ Gregg Jarrett Friday morning, Foley’s parents, John and Diane, said they do not believe their son’s rescue “was a priority” to the Obama administration.
The remarks come two days after the president told Buzzfeed that telling parents the United States does not pay ransom is “as tough as anything I do.”
“Communication was very poor, that’s one of the things. So the government really wasn’t telling us anything. It was all classified,” Diane Foley, told Fox’s Gregg Jarrett.
“Do you think he did everything?” Jarrett asked.
“It was very hard to know,” Foley said. “We didn’t feel Jim was a priority, even though we were told that from the very beginning, that he was. And just to trust that everything was being done. But we don’t have much evidence of that mainly because of very poor communication.”
“No one seemed to be accountable for these four Americans who were captive together. And no one could give us answers,” she told Jarrett.
John Foley added that it’s unknown whether James would be alive today if the administration would have acted on the knowledge when they obtained it initially.
“That’s the $64,000 question. It’s hard to have a definitive answer on that,” John Foley said. “You know, it’s just hard to answer. I mean, the problem is how would that have taken shape. We don’t negotiate, we don’t pay ransom, so that would have only left the military intervention.”