House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul expressed concerns on Thursday the White House isn’t doing enough to save hostages abroad.
McCaul, speaking on CNN’s The Lead, declined to confirm a report from the Daily Beast that the White House had intelligence on U.S. citizens held by ISIS but acted too late to save them.
But he said there were similar allegations with the death of American journalist James Foley at the hands of ISIS fighters.
“[The accusations are] that we are waiting too long to send in these rescue missions, and that for whatever reason this is getting bottle-necked up in the White House, [which is] having a hard time making any decision,” the Republican said.
“I think time is of the essence in these situations to save these hostages, and it’s very, very unfortunate what happened to [ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller]. I’m concerned they’re not doing enough not only to save these hostages but to win this war,” McCaul sais. “All we’re seeing is a policy of containment.”
The Texas Republican said Congress will have a larger discussion over what type of force the U.S. needs to use to win the war against ISIS as they debate President Barack Obama’s authorization for the use of military force, which he just delivered to Congress this week.
McCaul also agreed with concerns expressed by administration officials during a committee hearing on Wednesday that Syrian refugees immigrating to the U.S. could be a threat.
“I think they were very candid, both Homeland and FBI, about the fact that we don’t have adequate intelligence on the ground in Syria to properly determine how many of these foreign fighters we really have on our hands,” he said.
But they’re enough, McCaul said, to constitute a crisis.
The number of ISIS fighters “far surpasses” 19 hijackers that orchestrated the attacks on Sept. 11, McCaul said.
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this in our lifetime,” he added.