Fourteen years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Sen. Lindsey Graham warned that conditions in the world are “ripe” for another large-scale attack on the American homeland.
During an interview with Boston Herald Radio Thursday, the 2016 hopeful, 15th in the Washington Examiner‘s presidential power rankings, cautioned that another attack on America could be coming down the rails, adding that Syria would be the likely source of such an attack.
“The conditions for another 9/11 are ripe,” Graham said. “We’re reducing our defenses. We’re cutting our intelligence budget. The FBI’s budget’s being slashed at time when there are more terrorist organizations with safe havens to attack us. So what happened in Paris I think is gonna come here if we don’t watch it.”
“You’ve got thousands of foreign fighters flocking to Syria for the Jihad with western passports, and it’s hard to stop them all the time,” Graham said. “There’s just too many to watch. Too much safe haven. Too much money. Too many men. Too [much] equipment.”
“If we don’t disrupt their organizations they’re going to attack us here,” Graham said, adding, “we’re gonna have to hit them before they hit us, I really believe that.”
Graham has been one of the more outspoken candidates on national defense, having argued at the undercard debate last month that it is entirely possible that the U.S. might need to resend ground forces to the Middle East to fight the Islamic State.
[h/t: BuzzFeed]
