Calling it "humiliating" for the president of the United States to admit he has
no complete strategy against the Islamic State (ISIS), retired Col. Patrick Murray told
Newsmax TV President Barack Obama appears not to want the title of commander in chief.
"Last week you had [White House Press Secretary] Josh Earnest up behind the podium reassuring everybody that we had the right strategy in Iraq to deal with ISIS. His boss says we really don't have a strategy," Murray said Wednesday on "Newsmax Prime."
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"It's a little embarrassing for the administration and it's a little humiliating for the United States of America because … ISIS has a strategy and they're busy taking cities and terrain and slaughtering Christians, anybody in their path."
Staff at the Pentagon were likely furious on Monday when they saw Obama at the G7 Summit in Germany saying the Pentagon didn't yet have a complete strategy to train Iraqi soldiers to fight ISIS, Murray said. The Pentagon actually has multiple courses of actions in place stretching months into the future, he said, and Obama needs only to pick one.
"I personally think that Barack Obama as president of the United States would just as soon let that job description, commander in chief, part of his role go away," he said.
Iraq has essentially been reduced to a city-state of Baghdad, Murray added.
Iraqi soldiers have not shown enough backbone when facing ISIS, Murray said, but added they would show more courage if American provided more air support. Even the air missions being run come back three-quarters of the time without dropping bombs because they don't have the support on the ground to ensure they don't hit civilians or friendly forces, he said.
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