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PRESS RELEASE

Why Did the Obama Administration Ignore Threats to Iraq Posed by the ISIS Terrorists?

June 26, 2014 (EIRNS)—There is ample evidence that show that the Obama administration suppressed repeated warnings from the US intelligence community on the growing terrorist threats to Iraq posed by the ISIS terrorists. Shades of 9/11, and Libya.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said the intelligence community had warned about the ISIS threat, Fox News reported on June 24. "During the past year, the intelligence community has provided strategic warning of Iraq’s deteriorating security situation," the official said. "We routinely highlighted [ISIS’s] growing threat in Iraq, the increasing difficulties Iraq’s security forces faced in combating [ISIS], and the political strains that were contributing to Iraq’s declining stability." Asked who failed to act, the official did not explain.

This report dovetails with a number of others, which underscore the cover-up. Most significantly, EIR has been told by a qualified source that there was a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) written report issued in December 2013, which warned of the ISIS threat to the country.

Sen. Kerry claims there was no way the rapid surge could have been anticipated.

On June 25, the Washington Times reported Rep. Mike Rogers, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, accusing the Obama administration for ignoring repeated intelligence community assessments about the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and saying that the president’s ambivalence toward the assessments resulted in a policy failure. "This is not an intelligence failure, it’s a policy failure. Not responding is a decision, not making a decision is a decision," Rogers said, asserting that President Obama’s own national security advisers received the same intelligence briefings about ISIS that he and other lawmakers were receiving on Capitol Hill more than a year ago.

The Obama policy, of course, was to foster the jihadi threat, just as was done in Libya.

Rep. Rogers had earlier pointed out the threat that ISIS poses to the United States. Speaking to Fox News, he said that there are thousands of American and European volunteers and mercenaries fighting for ISIS, which has the capability to tap people with Western passports to send them back to Europe and the United States for terrorist activity. "This is as dangerous as it gets," said the Republican politician, who had urged Obama to use his influence with Arab states, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to rein in ISIS.