The Islamic State (ISIS) seized the key Iraqi city of Ramadi last month because the terrorists changed up their game plan and caught intelligence officials by surprise, retired Army Col. Derek Harvey told
Newsmax TV on Tuesday.
"They achieved success because they overmatched tactically and operationally with mass, surprise and maneuver — and it caught everyone off-guard," Harvey, former adviser to former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth.
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ISIS forces defeated the outnumbered, better-trained and well-equipped Iraqi military on May 17 —
leading Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to say over the weekend that Iraqi forces lacked the "will to fight."
Raising questions on whether Iraqis could effectively handle the ground operations of their offensive Tuesday to retake Ramadi, Harvey told Hayworth that the Iraqi military was "more noise than substance at this time" and they're "starting really before they're set."
U.S. forces had won Ramadi in 2006.
"I don't think there's a direct connection" to Carter's comments and the new Iraqi offensive, but "Ash Carter's comments were truly unfortunate, because they misrepresented what was really going on in the ground in Ramadi," Harvey said.
He added that the current "chatter" about ISIS is that the jihadists were targeting "U.S.-based military targets, threats to U.S. military personnel and large public functions that have a patriotic tone to them.
"That's clearly the chatter out there," he added, cautioning that "some of this could be designed to misdirect us. They are very sophisticated."
Harvey referenced weekend
reports that ISIS suggested that it might buy a nuclear bomb from Pakistan and smuggle it into the U.S. via the South Texas border. The idea surfaced in an op-ed piece in its propaganda magazine, Dabiq.
"This discussion about the threat of bringing a nuclear bomb through the Mexican border is being well within their means," he told Hayworth. "They are trying to stir up a hornet's nest for us."
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