Barack Obama plan to defeat Isil dismissed by US intelligence experts

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/12019857/Barack-Obama-plan-to-defeat-Isil-dismissed-by-US-intelligence-experts.html

Former and serving diplomats and intelligence officials tell the Telegraph that President Obama's hopes of defeating Islamic State are based on "smoke and mirrors"

1

1

71

72

Email

US President Barack Obama  Photo: EPA

By Ruth Sherlock, Washington and Richard Spencer, Middle East Editor

7:00AM GMT 27 Nov 2015

President Barack Obama's attempts to destroy Isil have been derided by Western diplomats and his own former intelligence officials.

Mr Obama has insisted that the United States will not change the strategy that he said was already “containing” Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and would work eventually to “degrade and destroy” it.

But in a series of candid interviews with the Telegraph, Western diplomats and intelligence officials - current and former - have angrily dismissed the approach as a “smoke and mirrors” public relations exercise founded on little substantive or effective action.

“It’s smoke and mirrors and that is the dirty little secret,” said Derek Harvey, one of Mr Obama’s senior former intelligence officials, a Middle East specialist, who said he resigned from his job in frustration at the administration's handling of the conflict.

CLICK TO READ MORE