Fmr Clinton CIA Chief: 'Big Mistake' to Rule Out Boots on the Ground

Fmr Clinton CIA Chief: 'Big Mistake' to Rule Out Boots on the Ground

James Woolsey, who served as CIA Director during part of the Clinton administration, criticized the Obama administration for ruling out the use of combat troops to fight ISIS because of an obsession with the “narrative” that terrorism is no longer a threat on Friday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead.”

“I think we’re paying too much attention at the top levels of the U.S. government to the narrative, as they say. The narrative is from the administration’s point of view that terrorism was basically ended by killing Bin Laden and that the war on terror is over to the extent that we don’t need to fight any more wars and we don’t need any big deployments. Turning down ideas when you still don’t know exactly what’s going on is not a good idea. You may want to surprise an enemy, you may need to do things that you earlier said you wouldn’t do, and I think it’s a big mistake to try to, for members of the administration to try to rule things out.”

Woolsey also said he agreed with Ret. Gen James Mattis’ statement that “the best military advice would never take some of our capability off the table, and if there’s better military advice to be had, I would be eager to see it, but I think right now up against this enemy, we’re going to have to take our own side in this, and in that regard, it means we use all of our capabilities.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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