Tulsi Gabbard Said At Debate That Trump Is Supporting Al Qaeda. Here's The News She Ignored Yesterday.
Gabbard’s remarks followed Washington Gov. Jay Inslee boasting that he was "only one of two members on this panel today who were called to make a judgment about the Iraq war." Inslee added, "I was a relatively new member of Congress, and I made the right judgment, because it was obvious to me that George Bush was fanning the flames of war."
Moderator Jake Tapper turned to former Vice-President Joe Biden, saying, "Vice President Biden, he was obviously suggesting that you made the wrong decision and had bad judgment when you voted to go to war in Iraq as a U.S. senator."
Biden responded, "I did make a bad judgment, trusting the president saying he was only doing this to get inspectors in and get the U.N. to agree to put inspectors in. From the moment ‘shock and awe’ started, from that moment, I was opposed to the effort, and I was outspoken as much as anyone at all in the Congress and the administration … I opposed the surge in Afghanistan, this long overdue -- we should have not, in fact, gone into Afghanistan the way ..."
Tapper interjected, "I would like to bring in the person on the stage who served in Iraq … Congresswoman Gabbard, your response to what Vice President Biden just said."
Gabbard started by claiming that George W. Bush had lied about the Iraq war: "We were all lied to. This is the betrayal. This is the betrayal to the American people, to me, to my fellow service members. We were all lied to, told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was working with al Qaeda, and that this posed a threat to the American people."
Gabbard stated, "So I enlisted after 9/11 to protect our country, to go after those who attacked us on that fateful day, who took the lives of thousands of Americans."
Then Gabbard attacked Trump, snapping, "The problem is that this current president is continuing to betray us. We were supposed to be going after al Qaeda. But over years now, not only have we not gone after al Qaida, who is stronger today than they were in 9/11, our president is supporting al Qaeda."
Gabbard attacking Trump for supporting al Qaeda was ironic considering that prior to the debate on Wednesday, three U.S. officials stated that intelligence reports acknowledged that Hamza bin Laden, the son and likely successor of former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was dead. CNN noted that a U.S. official informed CNN that the United States had a role in his death.
According to The New York Times, Hamza bin Laden was killed within the last two years. The Times added that according to two U.S. officials, "the United States government had a role in the operation that killed the younger Mr. bin Laden …"
NBC News noted:
In a September 2017 article, counterterror expert and former FBI agent Ali Soufan said, “Hamza is being prepared for a leadership role in the organization his father founded” and is "likely to be perceived favorably by the jihadi rank-and-file. With the Islamic State’s ‘caliphate’ apparently on the verge of collapse, Hamza is now the figure best placed to reunify the global jihadi movement."
