New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins, an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War during the Bush administration, has denounced President Barack Obama's decision to pull out of Iraq.
Filkins told radio host Hugh Hewitt that the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq in 2011 was "the worst strategic decision" and one of many poor strategic decisions during the past few years, according to
Washington Free Beacon.
Filkins, who has an upcoming article for the magazine focused on the Kurdish battles with the Islamic State in Iraq, said that after talking with a deserter from the Iraqi army, it was "hard to conclude otherwise" that the strife-torn country "wasn't ready" for American forces to leave.
"The United States left in 2011, we went to zero," Filkins said during the radio interview. "When you drive around Baghdad now, there is not a trace that the United States was ever there, apart from the American weapons. But in terms of projects and guidance — gone.
"I think that we spent almost a decade there, we paid with a lot of lives and a lot of blood, and essentially re-building the Iraqi state that we destroyed and, I don't think it was ready, it just wasn't ready to function on its own, and it couldn't function without us.
"We were the only people who could bring the Iraqi factions together, then we left. The thing doesn't work without us. You can see that in Iraq on a micro-level. As soon as we left the commanders started stealing all the money. And you can see that in a macro level. You can see what's happened to the Iraqi state."
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