A former high-ranking intelligence official said Tuesday that President Obama is “disconnected from,” and “very uncomfortable” with his military, less than 24 hours after the White House announced plans to deploy an additional 560 troops to Iraq.
“This president is very, very uncomfortable with his military. He’s very uncomfortable in the role of commander-in-chief,” retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who spent two years as head of the Pentagon’s intelligence agency, told the Washington Examiner.
Flynn has been an unsparing critic of Obama, who appointed him to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012, and his administration’s counterterrorism strategy since he left the DIA in 2014. The three-star general released a book on Tuesday that, in part, calls on the president to take “decisive action” against radical Islam and its allies.
“A president has two hats that they wear: One is president of the U.S. and the second is commander-in-chief and this president does not do well wearing that hat,” Flynn said Tuesday, adding that Obama is “disconnected from his military.”
Flynn, who’s being floated as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, said it is imperative that the next president “provide the vision and the support as to how to win and actually wear the hat of the commander-in-chief.”
“We need a president that can be very comfortable in the role of commander-in-chief,” he told the Examiner.
Flynn described the recent decision to escalate America’s military operations in Iraq as “admissions of failure” by Obama and his allies.
“I will just say that — and this is not to demean our troops, I mean they’re working their tails off — the president begrudgingly leaving more troops in Afghanistan than he wants to, and frankly this trickle effect into Iraq, is terrible,” he said.
