Following the State Department’s assertion Thursday that a review of current strategy against ISIS will not be taking place, Charles Krauthammer argued that the Obama administration is “sounding like Baghdad Bob” during the Iraqi invasion because the U.S. is “losing.”
Appearing on “Special Report,” Krauthammer told host Bret Baier that “everybody understands” now that the U.S. is losing ground in the fight against the terrorist group, making his point by invoking Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf, the former Iraqi minister of information under Saddam Hussein.
The syndicated columnist also went off on the Obama administration’s downplaying of recent gains by ISIS in Syria, telling Baier that the problem isn’t the training of Iraqi soldiers, but rather the “will” of the Iraqis.
KRAUTHAMMER: The administration is sounding like Baghdad Bob during the invasion of Iraq. They’re losing. Everybody understands that. ISIS — it wasn’t only that they took over in Iraq, but it took over the town of — the city of Palmyra in Syria, which gives it control of half of Syria, and later in the day today, they took over a crucial crossing point between Syria and Iraq, essential erasing the frontier and making it easier to resupply Ramadi. These are huge strategic gains. They are not tactical defeats, and what Obama says, well it’s not because it wasn’t our — the guys who were trained by us who were in Ramadi. This is nuts. The idea is if you’re going to have success, you have to have training and you have to have will. The idea that what the Iraqis are lacking is training is ridiculous. We’ve been training them for 15 years. If the troops haven’t got their heart in the battle, it will not succeed, and that’s what happened in Mosul when they ran away, and that’s what happened in Ramadi when they ran away.
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