PHOTO: Courtesy CSPAN
WASHINGTON, D.C.–Testimony you heard about all over the national news Tuesday involved Mississippi’s D.C. Sen. Roger Wicker (R), as he questioned Defense Sec. Chuck Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey during a meeting of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Wicker is a senior member of the Committee.
Before questioning both men, Wicker laid into Pres. Obama’s past strategies in the Middle East, which Wicker says have brought the U.S. to where it is now, facing the Islamic State.
“The surge in Iraq ordered by President Bush worked,” said Wicker. “But President Obama rejected the advice of many of his top military leaders to leave a residual force. Our Administration did not make every effort that it possibly could to gain a status of forces agreement in Iraq, and so we completely withdrew. Now, ISIS is controlling large parts of the territory and wreaking the havoc that the President is responding to.”
Dempsey said during testimony that he could foresee a time where ground troops may actually be needed, and he would provide that advice to Obama and other senior officials, if necessary.
The White House said later that ground troops definitely would not be used in the mission to defeat ISIS.
That plan had Wicker skeptical.
“I am willing to help the President take this hill again if I believe there is a plan that will work and be successful,” Wicker continued. “We must also have some assurance that we will not throw away our gains this time as we did after the surge worked.”
You can watch the video above to hear Wicker’s questioning of Dempsey and Hagel.
