House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi suggested Thursday that former CIA Director David Petraeus is partly to blame for the current challenges with the fight against ISIS in Iraq, rebutting his statement earlier that the U.S. is “probably losing” that fight.
“Well, General Petraeus had the responsibility of training the troops in Iraq,” the California Democrat told reporters on Capitol Hill. “I remember going over there on any number of occasions and hearing from him on some of (the trips) that he had trained 175,000 Iraqi troops and personnel so that they can take over their own effort. So I would ask him about that. I think the number was far smaller than was represented to us.”
ISIS’s seizure of the key Iraqi city of Ramadi last month renewed questions over U.S. strategy to combat the terror group, and lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week have expressed concerns over the threat posed by ISIS as police foiled an alleged terror plot in Boston earlier this week.
Petraeus said in an interview that aired in its entirety Thursday on “CBS This Morning” that the challenges in the fight against ISIS were “setbacks,” but he argued it was still possible to turn the tide.
“Well, you know, these are fights where if you’re not winning, you’re probably losing because time is not on your side,” Petraeus said. “It’s arguable now in Iraq. We’ll turn it around.”
