Nearly eight months ago, some of President Obama’s senior intelligence officials were already warning that ISIS was on the move. In the beginning of 2014, ISIS fighters had defeated Iraqi forces in Fallujah, leading much of the U.S. intelligence community to assess they would try to take more of Iraq.
But in an interview that aired Sunday evening, the president told 60 Minutes that the rise of the group now proclaiming itself a caliphate in territory between Syria and Iraq caught the U.S. intelligence community off guard. Obama specifically blamed James Clapper, the current director of national intelligence: “Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” he said.
Reached by The Daily Beast after Obama’s interview aired, one former senior Pentagon official who worked closely on the threat posed by Sunni jihadists in Syria and Iraq was flabbergasted. "Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting," the former official said.
September 29, 2014
"Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting."
Eli Lake says Obama got it wrong on "60 Minutes":
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95 comments:
If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.
The "Light Bringer"and the "Lower-er of Oceans" can never be wrong.
"“Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” he said."
Emphasis mine.
It's all "My military", "My advisors", blah blah blah I, Me, Mine.
Until things don't work out, then it's "They".
That's not leadership, that's community organizing.
Couldn't be be doing both?
He does not read the intelligence reports AND he bullshits about what they say?
I tend to the all of the above answer. Obie thinks he is so smart that he doesn't need to pay attention to anyone. To paraphrase, "I am a better intelligence analyst than the intelligence analysts."
Then he lies to us about it.
John Henry
The American invasion of Iraq was a "favor" Bush performed for our "Client" Saudi Arabia who paid its client to prevent a Shiite takeover of "Iraq" a country which no longer exists. The manner in which Obama fled," stupid" does not even begin to get at it left behind a huge inventory of weapons which is core of ISIL power. Obama armed them! It is that simple. When did journalism in America curl up and die?
Maybe we can convince Obama that they are Tea Party Republicans, then he will know what color they shit and on what days.
He is lying all of the time about everything he says. He calls that required leadership towards peacefully transforming the USA into its Dhimmi position under the Muslims sent here by god to rule everything.
Cutting off heads removes brains that speak opposition to that plan of the Prophet. But Obama's method of using a deluge of fantastic delusions spoken in unchallenged lies is the equivalent of beheading the hearers.
jono39: "When did journalism in America curl up and die?"
They didn't die.
They chose sides in the early 20th century starting with Walter Duranty.
Obama, like Hillary, can't take those 3AM calls.
He has skipped intel meetings. He has in others dozed off. He has downplayed any fault that is his every time there is a screwup.
Folks, we have to more years of this putz as a president. I strongly urge you to vote in the mid-terms and vote every democrat out to a) show your displeasure with this administration, and b) put a brake on Obama's stupidly, both in foreign policy and domestic.
It's not that I'm all republican,but hey, it's the democrats in the drivers seat now, and that has got to change.
It's the mathematician's "or." It's not just one or the other -- both can be true.
Have we learned the lesson about electing somebody who's never accomplished anything?
Eli Lake? The guy that pimped Ahmed Chalabi and his forged documents? haha.
Obama is also the first president (perhaps in recent times?) who does not get personally briefed by a human. He prefers to read it by himself, (may be on a golf course).
Team America: "Bad Intelligence!"
"He prefers to read it by himself, (may be on a golf course)."
Or not, as the case may be...
The lack of an actual brief with the interaction of Q&A surely means that he is less informed on the threats to the country than any of his predecessors...
Obama is also the first president (perhaps in recent times?) who does not get personally briefed by a human. He prefers to read it by himself, (may be on a golf course).
Seriously?? Way to not give a shit.
"Miracle cure! President suddenly & mysteriously able to talk for 2 minutes without saying 'I'." --Iowahawk
But he had a golf game to get to.....
"Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting," the former official said.
So... will 60 minutes or other MSM be interviewing this "former senior Pentagon official"?
"or"?
"The buck gets delegated here." --Barry Soetoro Truman
"They chose sides in the early 20th century starting with Walter Duranty."
I agree with this although I would put the date earlier. Read some of HL Mencken's quotes or the famous quip by Dorothy Parker about "How could they tell ?" if Coolidge had died.
Think about who goes into journalism these days or who the "public intellectuals" are.
There were geniuses in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Most of them are names that have been forgotten like, George Westinghouse or even Thomas Edison who used to be known to all school children and about whom Hollywood even made movies.
Children in Britain do not know who Churchill was. I am not into conspiracy theories but it does make one wonder.
Those two options seem to be about exactly right. Both of them. He can't be bothered to WORK and he never ever tells the truth, especially if it puts him in a bad light.
As noted above by multiple commenters, Obama is all "I me mine" when things are going cool and he switches to "they them their" when his previous whoppers are exposed.
As with Benghazi, the ACTIONS taken by this administration were all about controlling the way things LOOKED on the surface for political gain. You need look no further back than last week when they renamed Al Queda "Khorosan" in order to keep up the complete fiction that "al Queda is decimated" or in other formats "core al Queda [whatever that fungible term is supposed to mean] is decimated" both of which mean exactly nothing. Every move he's taken has allowed al Queda to re-arm, reengage and reconquer territory we had spent blood and treasure to gain.
Way to go Barry, our first JV president.
garage mahal said...
Eli Lake? The guy that pimped Ahmed Chalabi and his forged documents? haha
Obama has thrown the entire intelligence apparatus under the bus as all the leaks are now showing, not just Eli Lake.
The intelligence guys have been screaming about Al Qaeda not being on the run for quite awhile, but hey, an election had to be won.
So, the people who were responsible for tracking Bin Laden for 10 years leading to his takedown...for which the lefties only give credit to obama, are now upset that obama is tossing them over the cliff.
Big Surprise.
Still, it's nice to get the view from the WI High Schoolers "on the field" Association President, garage mahal.
As usual he forwards his TREASON by lying.
Somehow I knew ISIS was a problem, but the CIA didn't?
Either the President is lying, or he needs to fire people. If he won't fire anyone, draw your own conclusions.
You can lead Obama to the daily briefing but can you make him read it?
http://www.investors.com/editorial-cartoons/michael-ramirez/717042-daily-briefing
Who cares who this guy is? ISIS wasn't a secret. They operate in public. Why didn't the President react when it was obvious they were moving on Mosul? It was all over the blogs and the news that Iraq was falling apart.
Why depend on Eli Lake to say these things? The evidence exists independent of him.
So Obama's problems in the Middle East are due to a lack of intelligence?
Here's an example from the beginning of April.
Publicly available information distributed by ISIS itself.
The President had months of warning that Iraq was going to collapse, and he did nothing.
Maybe Obama slipped into some sort of fugue state during those intelligence briefings.
John Lynch: "Why depend on Eli Lake to say these things? The evidence exists independent of him."
It's very very very important to the lefties (witness this board) that the conversation revolve around Eli Lake, not the preezy....who personally killed bin laden..with no help from anyone else.
Shanna said...
Obama is also the first president (perhaps in recent times?) who does not get personally briefed by a human. He prefers to read it by himself, (may be on a golf course).
Seriously?? Way to not give a shit.
Seriously, up till Obama, every dawn, the CIA would prepare the Presidential Daily Brief (now delivered by ODNI). a National Intelligence Officer (e.g. Intel SES type) would give the brief and be prepared for questions and to take action items back.
Now they just deliver the PDB document and don't bother to brief. Obama is too busy and knows more about intel than the intel guys :)
John Lynch: "The President had months of warning that Iraq was going to collapse, and he did nothing."
Oh, the preezy wasn't doing nothing. He was busy making sure that the name "Al Qaeda" wasn't uttered anywhere in his fanboy press.
You know, campaign promises and all.
Drill SGT-
That explains a lot.
My God, it's going to be a long two years.
In a disagreement with a relative early on in this presidency I said that, although feckless and vain to the point of incompetence, this man is damaging the country, that he knows (or the people he relies on to know do know) that he's doing harm and that he intends all of it and more.
The results are much the same as if it was all unintended consequences I suppose. He lacks even the good intentions excuse if you ask me, as contemptible as it is. Is he a Muslim? He's probably not anything, unless being Marxist counts. Obamunist, for sure. Is he an Islamist? Very likely, at least as a hobby. He read the intelligence. He approves of, or doesn't care about, Islamic savagery or politics.
His main intent, second only to the elevation of his self to the status of mythical hero, is to damage and cripple the system at home. We were doing a fine job of that before him. He may get out in front of some of the damage that was already well underway and strut and preen for a while but there is a great deal of killing in a country, as someone once said. He's just the loudest pissant in the pack right now.
I expect we'll finish ourselves off just about as fast as if he had never been born.
Obama's wiggle room in his "they-a-culpa" is limiting the deflection to what was "taking place in Syria" before, not after, ISIS went on the move.
Now, Now, "stop bein mean all the time, stop just hatin all the time!"
As Lady Prof said a few days ago, "I'm pretty supportive of Obama's stepped up war on terrorism." Swaggy Smiles is on it, NOW! He really is engaged with these savages, NOW! He is so involved, I hear he is approving EVERY target.
I have a modest proposal.
Fire the expensive intelligence agencies who underestimate threats and make the President look bad.
I'll sit in my basement and read the internet every day for a fraction of the cost.
Seriously, how dumb does the President think we are?
That's enough for this thread. Peace out.
Mike said...
Way to go Barry, our first JV president.
9/29/14, 10:38 AM
As much as I think Barry is fighting WAY out of his weight class, I have to give the "first JV" title to Jimmy. Barry is doing all he can to make Jimmy look good but Jimmy did get there first...
The buck never stops. If taking responsibility for one's actions is a sign of maturity, then our president is a child.
garage mahal, 10:27:
"Eli Lake? The guy that pimped Ahmed Chalabi and his forged documents? haha."
You know, it's a good thing the media are mostly liberal, because liberal reporters would never fall for forged documents that seem to support a position they've already arrived at.
No tag of "bullshit"? :)
Do bears live in the woods? Of course he's shoveling bovine excrement. The man is the great artiste of late night dorm sessions. And if you inhale enough choom, you lose certain critical faculties--like realizing that people in the real world have a memory of what you might have said in some other "session" a few months ago.
Todd: " I have to give the "first JV" title to Jimmy. Barry is doing all he can to make Jimmy look good but Jimmy did get there first..."
In a somewhat backhanded defense of Carter, he was smart enough to know better but his hatred of Israel and of many western institutions led to some of his more ridiculous policy positions (with predictable results).
Obama, on the other hand, shares the same hatreds/dislikes with Carter but comes to the table with infinitely fewer mental/intellectual resources.
So, you know, a two-fer.
The leadership vacuum here isn't really that we failed to predict the size and capability of one or more terrorist splinter groups. That has happened repeatedly in the last 30 years and seems to be a basic feature of asymmetric warfare. There's no question that our intelligence community will continue to struggle to get good intelligence and our political and military leaders will continue to hesitate to take proactive action against groups that are difficult to identify, isolate, and destroy.
The leadership vacuum is in Obama's need to pass the buck. Bush was so useful for so long, but a good thing can't last forever. Obama is finally, truly, adrift: the man without a scapegoat.
"Eli Lake? The guy that pimped Ahmed Chalabi and his forged documents? haha."
I think we should pay more attention to garage here. He obviously knows something the rest of us (or maybe just me) don't. Tell us about Chalabi's forged documents. Sounds important.
Of course, garage could be bullshitting but that would be a surprise.
If you don't make golf a priority, you will never get better.
Michael K: "Of course, garage could be bullshitting but that would be a surprise."
It would not surprise me in the least if garages backwoods WI "can's with strings" intelligence gathering network uncovered truthier things than what all those stupid intelligence operatives have been coming up with.
Anything to defend the dearest of Dear Leaders.
Mike said...
Way to go Barry, our first JV president.
9/29/14, 10:38 AM
Junior Varsity? Obama? Hell, he isn't even up to the T-ball level of performance. He might be up to a kindergarden JV level at best.
Let's take a step back.
We left a power vacuum in Iran. Assad's slow-motion collapse has created one in Syria, and guess what — the worst of the bad guys took advantage of that!
Anyone who couldn't see that coming is an idiot. But Obama affirmatively covered his eyes.
This is not a failure of military or political intelligence in the "intelligence community." It's a failure of plain and simple human intelligence, and it took place in the Oval Office. Anyone who says otherwise is peddling bullsh*t.
Bushwood Country Club can send the Intel Briefs out with the Refreshment cart. That way President Three-Putt will be SURE to read them.
Remember when the lefties were all telling us the way to deal with bin Laden was Interpol?
Well, why don't we just swear out a warrant on ISIS? Isn't this just a law enforcement matter? I am sure Assad will hand them over if we have our documents in order, same as Mullah Omar would have.
Way to go Barry, our first JV president.
Give that man a Lakers' Jersey!
This is yet more proof of my theory that Obama doesn't care.
He isn't President to actually do the work of the President. He's President because it's cool to be President. It's neat! He gets to travel, and golf with celebrities, and give speeches where everyone loves on him.
Can't you people just leave him alone? He's the President! Let him enjoy it.
From Benghazi to Syria to ISIS
"No tag of "bullshit"? :)"
People keep thinking I have a "bullshit" tag. I don't. There's a "civility bullshit" tag which is for the limited topic of civility, the discussion of which I decided, at the point of tag-making, was ALL bullshit.
I guess I could have the word "bullshit" in every tag.
But there are 1000s of tags here, I can't go back and change all that, and Blogger limits the total number of characters in each posts tags, so it would cause problems.
D*mmit, Steve Kroft, can't you just let the man eat his waffle?
"The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” -- Barack Obama
I bet the President wishes he could travel back in time and decide not to say that.
Obama is a liar. Everyone knows that.
Dan Hossley said...
Obama is a liar. Everyone knows that.
9/29/14, 12:29 PM
I think the current term is "truth fluid".
Via Instapundit.
I love that the personally-approved bombing Obama is doing now is helping to kill enemies of Assad . We finally crossed the red line Obama drew in the sand; it's just that we are now on the wrong side of it.
Obama prefers to watch videos after the fact in order to identify a plausible scapegoat.
More of the same VERY old BS from Obama, it's ALWAYS someone elses fault.
1st JV President? pshh
Try "1st T-Ball President".
Original Mike said...
If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.
He was talking about ISIS when he said that.
What a small man Obama is. Compare with JFK's "I am the responsible officer of the government," when asked about the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
Is it really true that Obama is not getting in person intelligence briefings every day? I had read that he blew some of the briefings off but this is the first I've heard that they simply have dispensed with them.
Can anyone confirm this with a reliable citation?
Hi David
Please see the article at this link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-is-obama-skipping-more-than-half-of-his-daily-intelligence-meetings/2012/09/10/6624afe8-fb49-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html?tid=pm_pop
Basically Obama gets the PDB delivered to the residence rather than getting briefed in person, most of the time.
W used to get briefed in person six days a week. I read another article where that tried to spin this as Bush wanted to read less but I'm about to run to the airport so don't have time to track that down for you. The Thiessen article points out that the Buh PDB was usually taken by W along with senior team such as VP, etc.
The WH is trying to spin this as Obama is so smart he doesn't need to be briefed in person but Ocam's Razor has me thinking he is not that interested and is probably blowing off his readings too. Personal opinion, of course, but there's nothing about Obama that makes me think he is a conscientious and diligent consumer of intelligence, let alone a sophisticated one. His trite jayvee analogy was not worthy of presidential intellect and betrays his lack of deep knowledge on this topic.
@ Beldar 11:47
Absolutely!
"Basically Obama gets the PDB delivered to the residence rather than getting briefed in person, most of the time."
Holy fuck. This guy is a bigger lazy bastard than I've assumed to date.
Basically Obama gets the PDB delivered to the residence rather than getting briefed in person, most of the time.
Except for the one time they screwed up and delivered the Rocks for Jocks class notes to Obama at the White House, and the PDB to the star running back at the athletes' dorm.
I had a few minutes to watch the Steve Kroft interview, and Obama's rather steady stream of bullshit and backing people down with the privileged knowledge the Presidency seems more apparent now than years ago.
Even Kroft, with presumably no special knowledge, could sit there and start thinking through all the problems and contradictions in about...30 seconds.
Maybe we'll get to a point when there are simply no more interviews nor off-teleprompter speeches, just awkward, tense silence.
And I honestly haven't listened to a full speech of his in years. I just can't.
At this point, I'm taking him as a not particularly competent warmed-over radical, a man who took up community activism with a high talent for 'narrative' but who wasn't up to many demands of most jobs he's had.
The unions, activists, and race warriors will try and grab as much as they can, and the high liberals and many others will pretend nothing happened, or that any moral gains are worth the incompetence, ideology, as they stir restlessly and shift blame, settling back into the culture wars and broader platform of equality, human rights, government/private partnerships, global justice and will Davy do all right at Google and will Scooter find another manufacturing job?
Alas...
ants coming out of the woodwork.. Not falling on the sword for Obama.
Obama is a bold face liar, Obama is full of shit. Of Obama is never responsible for the actions of his subordinates and the acts of his administration.
I wonder if we can discern when President Obama last paid close attention to his intelligence briefings based on his knowledge of ISI/ISIL/ISIS/IS>
The Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) was the Iraqi branch of Al Queda and had control of Anbar province until it was defeated and severely reduced by "The Surge" of 2007. It was a low level but non-trivial terrorist threat in Iraq.
In early 2013 ISI sent a bunch of fighters into Syria. Then in April 2013 ISI poached many of Al Queda's fighters in Syria by announcing a merger with Al Queda's Syrian branch, the Jabhat al-Nusra (JN), much to the surprise of JN's leadership. This "new" organization was the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levent (ISIL). Al Queda declared the merger to be invalid but ISIL ignored this.
After grabbing a lot of manpower (and probably equipment taken from the Syrian Army), the rejuvenated ISIL sent major forces back into Iraq and overran the Iraqi Army in Anbar and Ninnevah Provinces starting in early 2014.
So from late 2007 until mid-2013, ISI/ISIL really was not a severe threat. After it absorbed manpower and equipment in the Syrian civil war, its capabilities grew significantly and then in early 2014 ISIL returned to Iraq and started overrunning the Iraqi Army and pushing the Kurdish Peshmerga back.
The Great Japanese Admiral, Isoroku Yamamoto, was opposed to the war with America.
He told Tojo and the military government it was a very bad idea. He had lived in America and knew what the American nation could to as for armaments.
They ignored his advice and thus the got a war they could not win.
I have no doubt the CIA gave full detailed briefs for after we left Iraq we also seeded many stay-behind agents.
They knew and reported what they knew all the way up.
But Obama and staff simply refused to believe what was being shown them.
They ignored the advice and thus the got a war.. and I hope we DO win.
Ann.. we need a new thread for this, please. This is crazy. He does not take in-person briefing because..
'It's pretty well-known that the president hasn’t taken in-person intelligence briefings with any regularity since the early days of 2009,' the aide said. 'He gets them in writing.'
'And it's well-understood why. No one sits and watches him read them, and no one can come back later and tell Congress in a closed session that "I told the president this specific thing was likely to happen".'
I had a few minutes to watch the Steve Kroft interview
Were they able to get the lipstick off the President`s, um collar?
Who could have predicted the 3am call would just go to voicemail?
This president prioritizes golf, fundraising, hanging out with celebrities and race baiting far above national security.
Still, he's the first back president and will have plenty of schools, highways and at least a major airport (I predict O'Hare) named after him, regardless of his dismal performance. Just like JFK.
'...it's well-understood why...no one can come back later and tell Congress in a closed session that "I told the president this specific thing was likely to happen".'
This is still sinking in. The president decided five years ago that he needed plausible deniability in case of intelligence failure.
I gots a news flash for ya Mr. President. You Are the Intelligence Community!
I'm going with "bullshitting". Like every other time he's opened his mouth
He is not bullshitting. He is on the other side.
Anyone ever call him a con man?
This morning the White House tried out a new spin via their reliable man Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post, who offered on Morning Joe that the Intel may have been IN the briefs, and the president reads them (Breitbart.com says --on his iPad), but maybe he couldn't tell which one of the multiple threats they contain to act on. As in, "who could have known?"
Umm. That is exactly the argument of why it is better to be actually "briefed" on these briefings. Not even a nice try there.
I think the part the president is lying about is ISIS being a threat to us outside of Syria or Iraq. He hasn't uncovered any realistic capabilities that they have to strike us at home; if he had, this would have been made front page news along with our crackdown on their terror cells and a raised terror alert here in America. The fact that we have none of that demonstrates that ISIS as yet has not been shown to be a danger to us here.
So why does he want to drop some bombs on them? Because ISIS is actually a threat to Obama's political fortunes--namely, if they were to topple the Syrian or Iraqi government and (alone or part of a nasty coalition) take over one of those countries a few years from now, it would reflect badly on Obama's foreign policy--he'd be criticized for (a) pulling out of Iraq and leaving it to chaos; (b) not toppling Assad sooner when "moderate" rebels might have filled the power vacuum instead of ISIS; and (c) having his whole "lead from behind/soft power" approach held to ridicule.
So Obama does what at least makes sense from a political standpoint--be seen as doing something by dropping a lot of bombs on the bad guys, hoping to stall or weaken them enough so that their opponents (Assad, the Kurds) get the upper hand and at least prevent them from taking over either country. No "boots on the ground" because you don't need to risk ground troops if you just want to be seen as striking the bad guys--you can do all that safely from the air. The goal is not to wipe out ISIS or eliminate any threats to America--it is simply to buy time in Iraq and Syria to prevent an embarrassment to Obama's legacy.
That's my take, anyway. If there's a more logical explanation I'd be happy to hear it.
We have a long, proud history of Presidents not reading intelligence reports, and bullshitting about it.
I'm surprised that a bunch of conservatives would be upset; they normally respect the preservation of entrenched traditions.
The same well meaning folks who voted for an unexamined "historic" inexperienced light weight empty suit who's lines are written by someone else, will make the same mistake in voting for Mary Burke.
We have a long, proud history of Presidents not reading intelligence reports, and bullshitting about it.
No we don't. We have a long tradition of presidents getting daily, face-to-face intelligence briefings. That's a very important distinction. My late father used to give the daily brief to POTUS or VPOTUS, and I suspect he would be horrified at the idea of trusting a naïf like Obama with reading, digesting and interpreting the brief.
With the daily brief, which most presidents up to this point took seriously, the president can't weasle out of problems by saying he wasn't told. The face-to-face aspect, duly logged, ensures both parties are doing their jobs in being informed and informing.
A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014.
So it is no joke folks, when Obama said the problem was he lacked intelligence.... he was right!
bbkingfish: "We have a long, proud history of Presidents not reading intelligence reports, and bullshitting about it."
Leftists have a long, proud history of rewriting history to support the bullshitting the latest and greatest leftist is spouting.
bbkingfish's claim is hilariously, ridiculously false as even the MSM is noticing. Finally.
obama is unique among modern Presidents in his running away from being briefed daily on security matters.
Always, always, the tees and greens beckon to him and he ends up heeding their siren call.
Maybe if Jay-Z and Beyonce presented the Daily Brief, or if it were held at fundraisers or at the "Nineteenth Hole" Preznit Three-Putt could be bothered to attend and pay attention.
One would think that the Obama Administration would learn from Nancy Pelosi's experience attempting to throw the CIA under the bus...
...but then that assumes the Obama Administration is capable of learning anything.
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