Underestimating the resiliency of Islamic terrorists and overestimating the willingness and ability of the Iraqi military to fight contributed to the rapid rise of the Islamic State, President Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
Obama, appearing on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” said an intense military campaign coupled with political solutions to salve the rift between Shiite and Sunni factions in the Middle East are needed to bring stability to the region and the world.
Divisions between the followers of the different branches of Islam “are the biggest cause of conflict, not just in the Middle East but in the world,” Obama said in the interview, a short segment of which was aired on “Face the Nation.”
Obama was asked about recent statements from James Clapper, director of national intelligence, that the U.S. intelligence community underestimated the ability of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to organize into a powerful military force that has gained control of large parts of Syria and Iraq.
After American-led military forces quashed al Qaeda in Iraq, fighters in the terrorist group were able to reconstitute themselves, taking advantage of the chaos in the Syrian civil war, Obama said.
“They were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos, and attract foreign fighters who believed in their jihadist nonsense,” Obama said of the Islamic State. “This became ground zero for jihadists around the world.”
When asked about another statement from Clapper that the United States overestimated the Iraqi Army’s ability and willingness to fight, Obama responded, “that’s true.”
