In an interview that aired on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” on Tuesday, former Vice President Dick Cheney once again took aim at the Obama administration for being responsible for the United States’ decreased presence in the world, one of which he argued has emboldened individuals and groups with hostile feelings toward the United States.
Cheney pinned the blame of the deteriorating situation in Iraq and Syria on Obama and said Obama’s 2012 campaign position of the Osama bin Laden problem being solved is in reality the U.S. Defense Department being weakened.
Partial transcript as follows:
I don’t. And partly, I think it’s important to understand this isn’t just about Iraq. One of the things we have going for us now, going under these circumstances, not going for us, is that it’s part of a much larger problem.
We just had the Rand Corporation produce a report within the last couple of weeks that showed there’s been a 58 percent increase in the number of Salafi jihadist terrorist organizations over the course of the last four years — four years, 58 percent increase. They’re up now to some 60, based on their count. We’ve had a doubling of the number of so-called terrorists, members, individual members of that organization, or those organizations. Doesn’t say they’re al Qaeda, but they’re all basically terrorist organizations with a similar philosophy, and it’s growing by leaps and bounds.
So it’s not just about Iraq, it’s the fact that now Iraq and Syria are both potential trouble spots. And as we see this proliferation of terrorists, we’ve also at the same time had an administration that didn’t want to recognize there was a problem. They liked to say, Well, we got the bin Laden problem solved or we’ve decimated al Qaeda. What they’ve decimated is the U.S. Defense Department.
(h/t Washington Free Beacon)
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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