A pair of recent stories in POLITICO magazine titled "Team of Bumblers" and "General Dempsey to the Rescue" illustrate how President Obama and the White House National Security Team have mishandled the threat posed by the ISIL terrorist organization from the beginning. In addition to calling for repeal of the AUMF- which they now use as justification for the airstrikes against ISIL - their request for a military training program was never vetted by military leaders at the Department of Defense.
January 4, 2014: Fall of Falluja: “Falluja is completely under the control of Al Qaeda.”… The fighting that has been going on for days has proved to be a crucial test for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s Shiite-led government, which is facing an escalating Sunni-led insurgency that threatens to tear the country apart. The unrest and the seeming inability of the Iraqi government forces, who were trained and equipped by the United States at a cost of billions ofdollars, to quell it underscores the steady deterioration of Iraq’s security since the last American troops left two years ago. New York Times
January- February, 2014: Intel Community Warns of Growing ISIL Threat: In testimony to National Security Committees, DNI Clapper warned, “…the sectarian war in Syria, its attraction as a growing center of radical extremism and the potential threat this poses to the homeland. Let me briefly expand on this point. The strength of the insurgency in Syria is now estimated at somewhere between 75,000 or 80,000 on the low end and 110,000 to 115,000 on the high end, who are organized into more than 1,500 groups of widely varying political leanings. Three of the most effective are the Al-Nusrah Front, Ansar Al- Sham, and the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant, or ISIL, as it's known, who total more than 20,000. Complicating this further are the 7,500- plus foreign fighters from some 50 countries who have gravitated to Syria. Among them are a small group of Af-Pak Al Qaida veterans who have the aspirations for external attack in Europe, if not the homeland itself. And there are many other crises and threats around the globe, to include…, the deteriorating internal security posture in Iraq, with AQI now in control of Fallujah.” DNI Clapper’s Testimony:
March 5, 2014: CENTCOM Commander Warns Of Growing ISIL Threat: "Nearly all partners, both in and out of the region, have expressed growing anxiety with respect to the violent extremists operating from ungoverned space within Syria. The flow of foreign fighters and funding going into Syria is a significant concern. When I took command of USCENTCOM in March of 2013, the intelligence community estimated there were ~800-1,000 jihadists in Syria. Today, that number is upwards of 7,000. This is alarming, particularly when you consider that many of these fighters will eventually return home, and some may head to Europe or even the United States better trained and equipped and even more radicalized. At the same time, extremists are exploiting the sectarian fault line running from Beirut to Damascus to Baghdad to Sanaa. Left unchecked, the resulting instability could embroil the greater region into conflict." Gen. Austin Testimony
June 10, 2014: ISIL Takes Mosul: Insurgents seized control of most of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul…a powerful demonstration of the threat posed by a rapidly expanding extremist army to the fragile stability of Iraq and the wider region…ISIS fighters seized large quantities of weaponry from the security forces when they overran their bases, including vehicles, arms andammunition that will help the group to press further offensives. The Washington Post
July 25, 2014: Rice Requests AUMF Repeal: In a letter to Speaker Boehner, and without consulting the military, National Security Advisor Rice requests the repeal of legal authority the White House will later rely on: ”The Iraq AUMF is no loner used for any U.S. government activities and the Administration fully supports its repeal. Such a repeal would go much further in giving the American people confidence that ground forces will not be sent into combat in Iraq.” Letter from Rice to Speaker Bohener
Request Never Vetted Through DoD: The AUMF that Rice wanted withdrawn is now part of the very authority the administration says it is operating under, along with the 2001 AUMF against al Qaeda. The Pentagon was not given a heads-up about that letter either, according to multiple sources. “We didn’t know it was going over there, and there were significant concerns about it,” said the senior defense official. “We had these authorities to go into Iraq under the 2002 AUMF, which is what she wanted repealed. We believed the authorities were still needed.” Politico
August 6, 2014: General Dempsey Urges President Obama to Intervene in Iraq: “We have a crisis in Iraq, Mr. President... ISIS is a real threat,… Dempsey outlined the militants’ rapid military gains in western Iraq and warned that ISIL fighters were threatening Baghdad. “It’s that bad?” Obama asked, according to this person’s account. Dempsey was blunt. “Yes, sir,” he said, “it is. Politico
A “Rare” Face to Face Between The President and his Chief Military Advisor: —the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—rarely has opportunities to get face time with the president. So when he does, he presses his advantage. One of the few times this happened was during the early evening hours of Aug. 6, when Dempsey joined Obama in his limousine at the State Department, where the president had been attending a session of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit. The ride to the White House allowed Dempsey his first one-on-one with Obama in several weeks. Politico
August 19, 2014: James Foley is killed. "The video concludes with the fighter threatening to kill Steven Sotloff, another American freelance journalist, who was being held alongside Mr. Foley. Mr. Sotloff is seen kneeling in the same position, in the same landscape and wearing the same style of orange-colored jumpsuit. “The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision,” the fighter says." New York Times
August 28, 2014: We don’t have a strategy yet. President Obama
September 10th, 2014: President Obama unveils his ISIL strategy : “At this moment, the greatest threats come from the Middle East and North Africa, where radical groups exploit grievances for their own gain. And one of those groups is ISIL -- which calls itself the ‘Islamic State….ISIL is a terrorist organization, pure and simple. And it has no vision other than the slaughter of all who stand in its way.” President Obama
Again the Request is Never Vetted Through DoD: The White House transmits a request for the Military to train and equip Syrian forces that HAS NOT been coordinated with the Department of Defense: “The Pentagon was surprised by the president’s timing, according to a senior defense official. ‘We didn’t know it was going to be in the speech,’ he said, referring to Obama’s Sept. 10 address to the nation. Second, the White House neglected to give Pentagon lawyers a chance to revise and approve the proposed legislative language before it went to the Hill, which is considered standard practice. Staffers working for Rep. Buck McKeon, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said they were appalled by what they saw: language so sloppy that it failed to mention adequate protections against so-called ‘green-on-blue’ attacks by trainees on American troops, and effectively left the Defense Department liable for funding the mission against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—even though the president was telling members of Congress he didn’t need money for this new mission, since the Saudis were putting it up. ‘What came over would have not have been a mission the DoD could have executed,’ says a senior Republican committee staffer.” Politico
September 11th, 2014,Chairman McKeon offers an alternate strategy to combat ISIL: "I want our coalition to go all-in now, so that we do not risk having to use enormously more blood and treasure later. I would much rather fight ISIL in Iraq and Syria today than fight them in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Kurdistan tomorrow.Fortune favors the bold. ISIL is a threat that we all share. They are an enemy of the free world and must be stopped..... History punished us once 13 years ago today. It is the responsibility of us all to ensure it doesn’t happen again."
September 17th, 2014: House Passes updated Syria Train and Equip authority: “The authorization is limited in scope to training up to 5,000 members of the Syrian opposition in Saudi Arabia. It provides no new funding and requires the administration to provide status reports to Congress. The Obama administration said the mission may be funded by international contributions, but the resolution authorizes the Pentagon to shift funds from other accounts if necessary.” USA Today
September 23rd 2014, Coaltion air campaign over Iraq and Syria begins. President Obama relies on the 2002 Iraq Authorization to Use Military Force that Ambassador Rice asked the House to repeal just 2 months before. War Powers Notification