Friday on Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) reacted to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, downplaying ISIS being close to capturing Ramadi, saying, “This may be one of the most bizarre and insensitive statements I have ever heard a military leader make.”
Dempsey said, “The city itself is not symbolic in any way. It hasn’t been declared the caliphate or central to iraq. The issue isn’t brick and mortar. It is about defeating ISIS. I would much rather that Ramadi not fall, but it will not be the end of a campaign. Should, it fall we have to get it back.”
McCain reacted by saying, “Sometimes I think I have grown numb from the statements made by General Dempsey in defense of this administration and its feckless foreign policy. This is truly a stunner. During the surge, we had a battle to retake Ramadi and there was a loss of many American Marines and soldiers and many wounded in the battle of Ramadi, which was one of the signal battles of the surge as we took back over of Anbar Province. And now this general says it doesn’t matter. I wonder what he would say to the families of those Marines and soldiers, those brave Americans who were killed and wounded in the battle for Ramadi.”
“When a major city is taken over by the enemy, and it doesn’t seem to matter,” McCain continued. “And what is the business about it isn’t part of the caliphate? Who declares what the caliphate is? ISIS does.”
“This may be one of the most bizarre and insensitive statements I have ever heard a military leader make. But he is also the mouth piece for a failed—not only a failed policy, but there is no strategy in Iraq and especially in Syria,” he added.
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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