US intelligence to warn of threat to Iraq

Fox News:

The U.S. intelligence community warned about the "growing threat" from Sunni militants in Iraq since the beginning of the year, a senior intelligence official said Tuesday -- a claim that challenges assertions by top administration officials that they were caught off guard by the capture of key Iraqi cities.

Earlier Tuesday, in an interview with Fox News, Secretary of State John Kerry said "nobody expected" Iraqi security forces to be decisively driven out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, as they were earlier this month in Mosul.

But in a separate briefing with reporters Tuesday afternoon, the senior intelligence official said the intelligence community had warned about the ISIS threat.

“During the past year, the intelligence community has provided strategic warning of Iraq’s deteriorating security situation," the official said. "We routinely highlighted (ISIS') growing threat in Iraq, the increasing difficulties Iraq’s security forced 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.

Offering a grave warning about the current strength of the group -- which is a State Department-designated terror organization -- the official also said that barring a major counteroffensive, the intelligence community assesses that ISIS is "well-positioned to keep the territory it has gained."The official said the ISIS "strike force" now has between 3,000 and 5,000 members.

Further, the official said ISIS, as a former Al Qaeda affiliate, has the "aspiration and intent" to target U.S. interests. Asked if Americans have joined, the intelligence official said it "stands to reason that Americans have joined."
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Any American who joins this group is a traitor.  The failure to act on the intelligence falls mainly on the President whose first instincts seems to be to do nothing and hope things work out.  The Kurds were also sounding the warning on the attacks, but the biggest miscalculation probably was a belief that the IRaqi army could hold off the attacks.