SIMPLE: HE'S ONE OF THEM…

Why Did Obama Refuse to Stop ISIS Conquest of Ramadi w/Air Strikes?

May 28, 2015 by Daniel Greenfield 15 Comments

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First, a flashback.

Ten hours before the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, Bill Clinton allegedly told a group of businessmen in Australia that he had a chance to kill Osama Bin Laden, but passed because it would have meant killing hundreds of innocent civilians.

That’s according to never-before-released audio of remarks made public by Australian media on Wednesday.

At the event in Melbourne, which took place not long after the end of Clinton’s term in office, the former president was asked about international terrorism.

“And I’m just saying, you know, if I were Osama bin Laden — he’s very smart guy, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about him — and I nearly got him once,” Clinton is heard saying. “I nearly got him. And I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him. And so I didn’t do it.”

And now let’s go back to the successful ISIS conquest of Ramadi. Obama Inc. has blamed Iraqis for not wanting to fight. But it was actually Obama who didn’t want to fight.

The U.S. watched Islamic State fighters, vehicles and heavy equipment gather on the outskirts of Ramadi before the group retook the city in mid-May. But the U.S. did not order airstrikes against the convoys before the battle started. It left the fighting to Iraqi troops, who ultimately abandoned their positions.

U.S. intelligence and military officials told me recently, on the condition of anonymity, that the U.S. had significant intelligence about the pending Islamic State offensive in Ramadi. For the U.S. military, it was an open secret even at the time.

The U.S. intelligence community had good warning that the Islamic State intended a new and bolder offensive on Ramadi because it was able to identify the convoys of heavy artillery, vehicle bombs and reinforcements through overhead imagery and eavesdropping on chatter from local Islamic State commanders. It surprised no one, one U.S. intelligence official told me.

Dave Deptula, a retired general who was the first deputy chief of staff for the Air Force for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, told me that airmen flying sorties in Iraq “have to call back and ask, ‘mother may I’ before they can engage.”

Deptula agreed. “The current rules of engagement are intentionally designed to restrict the effectiveness of air power to prevent potential collateral damage,” he told me. “That results in ISIS getting the freedom of action so they can commit genocide against civilians. Does this make any sense?”

All these years after 9/11, the Democrats still insist that we fight wars with our hands tied behind our backs.

They prefer letting Islamic terrorists commit mass murder to preserve their warped version of the moral high ground.

About Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.