Obama’s Secretary of Defense/CIA Director: Rise of ISIS is Obama’s Fault

Panetta-and-Obama

You know that things are bad when a Clinton loyalist who was rewarded with heading up Defense and the CIA is running to sell you out.

Obama’s former Secretary of Defense and Director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, has blamed the president for the chaos unfolding in Iraq.

Time previewed Panetta’s upcoming memoir, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace. In the book, Panetta said he and others in the Obama administration pushed for a residual force of U.S. troops to remain in Iraq but their efforts were stymied by White House.

“The White House was so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in arrangements that would preserve our influence and interests,” Panetta wrote…

My fear, as I voiced to the President and others, was that if the country split apart or slid back into the violence that we’d seen in the years immediately following the U.S. invasion, it could become a new haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the U.S. Iraq’s stability was not only in Iraq’s interest but also in ours. I privately and publicly advocated for a residual force that could provide training and security for Iraq’s military.

To my frustration, the White House coordinated the negotiations but never really led them. Officials there seemed content to endorse an agreement if State and Defense could reach one, but without the President’s active advocacy, al-Maliki was allowed to slip away. The deal never materialized. To this day, I believe that a small U.S. troop presence in Iraq could have effectively advised the Iraqi military on how to deal with al-Qaeda’s resurgence and the sectarian violence that has engulfed the country.

This isn’t new. This version of events was well known. I wrote about it a few years ago in The Great Betrayal. But it was limited mainly to conservative critics.

Now Panetta, whose people were obviously the source of the leaks of that version of events, is openly putting it out in his memoirs. And it couldn’t come at a worse possible time for Obama.

Panetta is rushing to excuse his own role and prevent himself from becoming a scapegoat for Obama’s latest “intelligence failure”.

But it can also be seen as Hillary Clinton ramming a knife in Obama’s back and kicking him out on the way down. The last thing that Obama needed now was his own top defense figure coming out and saying that the rise of ISIS could have been prevented if he had the country’s interests at heart, instead of his own political agenda.

Panetta is saying that Obama did not want to be associated with any agreement. He wanted the buck passed to the military. The military was tired of the buck. The White House’s message to Iraq was that it didn’t want to be involved. The message was received.

Maliki climbed all the way into bed with Iran and the rest is well… current events.

  • edlancey

    When this sack of sh#t was elected in 2008 I wondered to myself whether we would make it to the end of his presidency without the entire West being wrecked.

    I’m still not sure if we will or not.

    • Brucew56

      If the guy that jumped the fence had carried a bomb, you would have been a prophet. It will happen again, believe me. OBUMBLE still first have a clue what he’s doing to AMERICA, and really doesn’t care.

      • Joy Beum

        The muslim-in-chief DOES know what he’s doing. It is very intentional and going according to plan. He said he would change America and he is doing just that. He has to be stopped, and soon!

        • Brucew56

          Well said!

  • Chris Gait

    The memoir’s subtitle is “A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace”. Really? What kind of hubris and egotism does it take for a cave worm like Panetta to boast of his leadership? He was singled out to take part in the worst administration in US history and now he is going to ‘out it’ in his memoirs of his nasty, scrabbly political life? What a loser.

    • NeoKKKonzsuck

      He is cashing on half of the country’s insatiable appetite for racist hatred of this president. Sadly, he will make a lot of money on this book. It is amazing to look at the wreckage caused by NeoKKKon RepubliNaziTard policies and the refusal of them to take any responsibility for it whatsoever. I truly believe they should all go to Iraq and live in the mess they made. Didn’t Colin Powell say “You break it, you own it”? There you go, RepubliNaziTards, it’s all yours.

      • glpage

        Disagreeing with someone’s ideology does not make one a racist. But, those of limited cognitive ability aren’t able to figure that out, so, they assume something some hack said is true.

      • Pete

        Hey new guy welcome.

        Hey, everyone we have a new troll or an old troll with a new face!

        Newbie troll read the poll & weep. If ebola isn’t over in 4 weeks and IS makes further gains, your team will be toast and rightfully so.

        Have nice day! :)

        http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

      • Pete

        The Islamic State is still advancing despite Obama’s half=hearted & half-azzed attempts at containment.

        Islamic State advances near Kobane

        Wow, this is your 4th post out of 4 total posts. You really had to create a new DisQus account to spew filth?

        You are a sad, sad little person.

      • Pete

        To the Left

        You are losing.

        There is nothing you can do about except to lie, cheat and, steal.

        Your beliefs, policies and actions are to blame.

        http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

        We will see you at election day.

      • Chris Gait

        Troll flagged.

      • http://www.stubbornthings.org NAHALKIDES

        @troll

  • glpage

    Most of Obama’s advisers are academics or community organizers. Neither are particularly good at managing or handling real world situations. What they have shown is they are unable to really do anything productive; the economy is still in the dumps, our foreign relations are pretty much a disaster, and the federal government is basically out of control. To make matters worse, Obama thinks he knows and understands much more than he really does and he is so narcissistic he is unable to realize this.

    • Joy Beum

      Barry is ignoring all the military minds he has at his disposal. He does not WANT the muslim terrorists to be destroyed. He is one of them.

  • Texas Patriot

    If Raymond Ibrahim is correct that the rise of the Islamic State is actually a “good thing” because it permits the world to see what an authentic Islamic Caliphate would actually look like if created, structured and implemented precisely in accordance with the teachings and life example of Muhammad and his followers, perhaps Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama will claim that was their plan all along and both will be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Does anyone think they would turn it down?

  • ObamaYoMoma

    Obama may have failed to heed their warnings, but the rise of ISIS, which is old AQ in Iraq in essence, was preordained the second Saddam was ousted from power. However, it was delayed a few years by the American presence and then subsequently by the surge. Nevertheless, as soon as the heat was off and the Americans had existed, they climbed out of the woodwork where they had been hiding to come out and play again.

    Indeed, just like when Kaddafi was ousted, the jihadists moved to fill in the vacuum his ouster left behind and just like when Mubarak was ousted, the MB jihadists rose up to fill that vacuum, and would still be in power today if not for the current head of the Egyptian military. Oust the King of Jordan, and the same thing will inevitably happen. Indeed, oust any of the so-called apostate rulers, and watch the jihadis scramble to fill the vacuum.

    Moreover, going after ISIS in Iraq as opposed to Islam is a fool’s errand that will inevitably result in the same exact thing they did during the Iraqi surge. As they will just simply melt into the woodwork like roaches and then come out again to play when the heat dies down.

    The only solution, again, is to eradicate Islam. That is mainstream orthodox Islam and not radical Islam, because the term “radical Islam” is just a political correct myth used by our politicians not to embarrass all Muslims.

  • dough

    I see the future…. I see established marshal law coming soon. November 2014 so he can prevent the senate from being lost. LOL!

  • truebearing

    “The truth will out.” A famous quote from Shakespeare’s
    Merchant of Venice that endlessly applies to the leaking perfidy of that merchant of malice, Barack Ebolabama.

    As much as the Left hates truth, it will come out, bit by bit, as they use it on each other in their perpetual quest for power. It’s really the only time they do value truth.

    We now know what we always knew… but too late to prevent the damage to the country.

    Will Americans realize what evil they have elected and turn from it in a big way in future elections?

  • Matthew Johnston

    Well you keep 30 to 50,000 troops in country operate with a sectarian government conducting their sectarian policy’s on the Sunni minority, at best you are delaying what has occurred. And a much larger deployment of 120,000 to 160,000 is required. As before during the last civil war.

  • desert_rat

    This is our reward for electing and reelecting a president whose only “qualification” for the office is the color of his skin. When an unqualified, incompetent, narcissistic, nincompoop is running things this is what we get.