ISIS Captures 2,300 U.S. Humvees from Iraqi Forces
Robert O’Neill Reacts to Terrorists Using American Military Equipment and Tactics.
As if we needed any more reminder that ISIS has gotten far too out of control — the United States got a hard dose of reality this week.
As reported by FOX News, ISIS handily confiscated an estimated 2,300 U.S. military humvees from retreating Iraqi troops in a single battle alone. We learn more about the potential consequences from FOX News contributor and former Navy SEAL Robert J. O'Neill, who sat down with FOX News anchor Martha MacCallum on America's Newsroom.
Highlights from their exchange:
MacCallum: "Here's the story, and it came straight from al-Abadi. He said, 'In Mosul we lost 2,300 American up-armored humvees'. The guys in ISIS are now riding around with those with their flag on top."
O'Neill: "They're riding around with them. More frightening is that they’re using them as large suicide bombs. And because they're armored, they can drive them pretty much anywhere. They can get as close as they want. The other bad news is that they didn't just get the humvees, they got the machine guns that come with the humvees. They got the weaponry, the communications. Everything that we left for the Iraqi army."
MacCallum: "It's so crazy. And then we hear the president say just a couple of weeks ago we're going to send 1,000 new missiles. We've heard these promises of arming the Iraqis over and over. We heard also about arming moderate Syrians. We watched the president get up in front of the podium and say we're going to commit to this…we've now chosen this group…and over and over the same thing happens."
O'Neill: "Even the prime minister of Iraq said that it was our fault because we didn't rearm them quickly enough to fight for Ramadi. They gave up 2,300 humvees…something like $1.7 billion of equipment is still there. We're just arming the enemy at this point. The Iraqi army, the Shia-led army, without the help of Iran — which itself is scary — does not have the will to fight ISIS because ISIS is fighting an ideology, they want to be martyrs. They're going to fight to death. The Iraqi soldiers…not only do they not have the proper leadership, they're not very well trained and they're pretty much in the army for a paycheck."
While offering military tactics the U.S. military might take, O'Neill concedes… "It's a pretty big mess."