Clapper: ISIS, Like Viet Cong, Surprise With Will to Fight While U.S. officials were spot on in predicting the Islamic State’s (ISIS) “prowess and capability” and the Iraqi military’s “deficiencies,” there was a gaping hole in the assessment: Predicting its will to fight, National Security Director James Clapper told Washington Post opinion writer David Ignatius. “That’s always a problem,” Clapper said. “We didn’t do it in Vietnam. We underestimated the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese and overestimated the will of the South Vietnamese. In this case, we underestimated ISIL [the Islamic State] and overestimated the fighting capability of the Iraqi army. ... I didn’t see the collapse of the Iraqi security force in the north coming. I didn’t see that. It boils down to predicting the will to fight, which is an imponderable.” Clapper discussed with Ignatius the United States’ new National Security Strategy, unveiled Thursday at a Washington intelligence conference, reported by the Associated Press. At the summit, Clapper bemoaned budgets cuts, leaks, and an expectation that “intelligence can be collected with no risk of embarrassment upon discovery and no threat to anyone’s civil liberties. Vote Now: Should Congress Back Obama War Plan? Vote Here “We call this immaculate collection,” he joked, according to the AP. Relying on other nations to make “substantive contributions” in the fight against ISIS is a first for the U.S., Clapper told Ignatius, characterizing this new “paradigm” as a “test.” “We haven’t done this before,” he said. “We have always built around a major force contributed by the U.S. We’re going to try a different approach. ... At this point, I am reluctant to make predictions about how it will turn out.” President Barack Obama has boldly stated he will not commit ground troops to the fight, reiterated during a speech Wednesday at the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida. “I will not commit you, and the rest of our armed forces, to fighting another ground war in Iraq, he assured the troops.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 00:34:04 +0000
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