Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who serves on the Homeland Security Committee and as Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, argued that, “ISIS is a direct threat to the United States of America,” and “more powerful now than al Qaeda was on 9/11” on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” on NBC.
King also criticized the president’s reluctance to take more aggressive action in Iraq.
“What President Obama has said is really a shameful abdication of American leadership,” he said. “[W]e can’t wait for Maliki or the Iraqi Parliament to fight ISIS … I want to hear what he [Obama and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL)] says when they attack us in the United States.”
And, “The president, he started this. He started this downfall in 2011 with direct withdrawal of American troops.”
He also stated that the president’s attempts to blame the intelligence community were incorrect, declaring, “When the president says, and he tries to blame this on the intelligence community, that they didn’t tell him. Gen. Flynn was saying months ago that ISIS was going to move to Iraq. Fallujah fell months ago. All talked about was ending war in Iraq. All he ended was American influence in Iraq. And that’s a failure, and it’s on his hands.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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