RUSH: Look at this. I have it right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. This is from The Daily Caller today.
“Pentagon Official: The President Is Lying to America — About Us, and About ISIS.” It’s written by a guy named as “Joseph Miller,” but Joseph Miller is the pen name. (For those of you in Rio Linda, that means he’s making this up. His name. He doesn’t want to reveal his real name.) “Joseph Miller is the pen name for a ranking Department of Defense official with a background in US special operations and combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has worked in strategic planning.”
He has written a piece, and to hide his identity, he has created a pen name. “On Sunday, Obama said the intelligence community had underestimated the rise of ISIS, saying in an interview with CBS, ‘Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,'” close quote.
“But we know that isn’t true, as nearly a dozen administration officials have testified to the threat posed by ISIS publicly over the last year. … To mitigate the fallout, Earnest’s office issued a statement stating that, ‘…A lot of that [decision-making] was predicated on the will of the Iraqi security forces to fight for their country.’
“But this was also not true. In 2010, General Lloyd Austin, then-commander of United State Forces in Iraq, directly informed the president that over 20,000 US troops would be required to maintain the gains made by US forces against al-Qaida and its affiliates, and to mentor the fledgling Iraqi security forces — because he knew they were not ready to go out on their own.”
So here’s a guy working there who says Obama’s lying, making it all up. Everything Obama’s saying is a lie. The military, the intel people have told Obama exactly what the circumstances are, and the circumstances that have unfolded are exactly what he was told would happen as far back as four years ago. Obama pulls out of Iraq. He’s gotta get out to placate his lunatic fringe base.
He was told by General Lloyd Austin: If you do this, it’s gonna be a big mistake. You need to keep over 20,000 forces there to maintain what we’ve won (i.e., in the surge) and to make sure these Iraqi security forces ramp up and are able to take care of their own country. Obama said, “Screw it.” And pulled out.
Now he’s out there saying nobody ever told him any of this stuff.
So we have a piece here where an active military guy, Department of Defense, is calling the president out on this. He says he’s lying when he says nobody knew the Iraq army wouldn’t be able to stand up to ISIS and Al-Qaeda. He quotes General Austin over the more than 20,000 troops necessary. There’s incompetence everywhere; that’s undeniable.
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RUSH: Yeah, right. So Obama’s out there saying, “Hey, Jim Clapper, he’ll be the first to tell you that he screwed up!” Right? So now people are saying, “Mr. President, why don’t you show us the presidential daily briefs where all this was underestimated or not.” Yeah, they won’t do that, but some are suggesting to Josh Earnest, “Well, hey, look, let us see these presidential daily briefs.”
We saw the ones from 9/11. Those things are released. The 9/11 Commission got hold of ’em. We’ve seen some. So, Mr. President, release these things.