There's a "serious disconnect" between the White House and the military, and it's resulted in a great deal of frustration within the military's ranks, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said Thursday.
"There's a lot of frustration, I know, in the senior leadership about what we're not able to do," Flynn, a former Defense Intelligence Agency director and adviser to GOP nominee Donald Trump, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"There's no enemy that's unbeatable, and what we have right now, is we have over four and one-half, five years of fighting ISIS, as though they're some unbeatable enemy."
During Wednesday night's NBC/MSNBC Commander-in-Chief forum, Trump commented that under the leadership of President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who served as secretary of state from 2009-2013, the nation's generals "have been reduced to rubble," and Flynn on Thursday agreed.
Over the past eight years, said Flynn, there have been generals who have been moved out of the service for "whatever reason," including himself.
Earlier this summer, Flynn said he was ousted as his agency's director in 2014 because he insisted on calling the nation's enemies radical Islamic terrorists.
He also mentioned the name of Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who retired in 2010 after serving as the military's top commander in Afghanistan.
"Donald Trump has enormous respect for our military, for our military leaders and he also said last night, for our intelligence professionals," said Flynn. "I know I have been in a couple of these intelligence briefings that have been in stark contrast to the policy decisions we are seeing coming out of this White House. So this is a very dangerous time."
He also backed Trump's decision to keep his plans for dealing with ISIS a secret, while criticizing Clinton for comments that she would not put boots on the ground in Iraq.
"In warfare you do not want to telegraph or be predictable as to what you'll do or not do," said Flynn.
Trump has come under fire for commenting about the body language of the professionals giving him recent security briefings showing that there was discord with Obama, and Flynn, who was at the meetings, said Trump was correct.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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