Mattis attacks Biden for strategic blunder in Iraq

Washington Examiner:

Jim Mattis, the former Marine Corps general and Pentagon chief, has lashed 2020 Democratic front-runner Joe Biden for fueling the rise of ISIS by insisting on the total withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq.

"You may want a war over. You may declare it over. You may even try to walk away from it. But the bottom line is the enemy gets a vote, as we say in the military, and we simply have got to understand that terrorism is going to be an ambient threat," he said in an NPR interview.

As vice president, Biden was tasked by President Barack Obama with overseeing Iraq policy. In his new book, Mattis, 68, argues that Biden, 76, was "indifferent" to the consequences of complete withdrawal - consequences that included "tens of thousands of casualties, plus untold misery for millions of innocents," as well as the kidnapping and beheading of westerners, and horrific terrorist attacks across the world.

"He wanted our forces out of Iraq," Mattis writes in Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. ”Whatever path led there fastest, he favored. He exuded the confidence of a man whose mind was made up, perhaps even indifferent to considering the consequences were he judging the situation incorrectly."
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The U.S. pulled out its forces from Iraq in 2011, despite warnings from Mattis that this would be folly. At the time, Mattis was head of Central Command, overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama sent forces back to Iraq in 2014 after the Islamic State seized parts of the country.

"All this was predicted — and preventable," Mattis writes in his book, which goes on sale Tuesday.

He also criticized Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan, saying he was given “contradictory objectives,” and President Trump’s decision to withdraw forces from Syria, which led to Mattis’ resignation.
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There is more.

Mattis was clearly right about the strategic blunder of withdrawing US forces from Iraq.  It led to the mass murder of thousands and the rape and pillaging of innocents in the path of ISIS.  It is clearly a weakness for both Biden and the other Democrats who backed that strategic blunder.  It is one of many by the Obama administration.  Another one was surging troops into Afghanistan and then telling the Taliban they would be withdrawn by a date certain.  It is hard to imagine a much dumber way of dealing with the enemy.  Another strategic blunder by the Obama administration which also had Hillary Clinton's hand in it was the Libya operation to overthrow Ghadaffi.  That wound up arming thousands more terrorists and destabilizing North Africa.

One of the ironies of this report is that the media thought Mattis would restrict his criticism to President Trump.