Former national security adviser and UN ambassador Susan Rice on Sunday said the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi doesn’t signal the fight against the terrorist group is over.
In an interview on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” Rice called the Saturday night strike in northern Syria was “a major milestone.”
“It doesn’t mean that the fight against ISIS is over, and that we can declare ‘mission accomplished’ and walk away,” she said.
“They are able to reconstitute,” she said, adding that the United States to maintain a “minimal presence” in Syria.
Rice lamented the leaders of Congress’ intelligence committees were not given a heads-up about the strike, and “I’m quite confident they didn’t do the protocol for predecessors either,” she said of former President Barack Obama getting a call in advance.
Rice also called it “very dangerous that U.S. troops have been pulled from Syria.
“We have an ISIS that can come back… with new leadership,” she said, criticizing President Donald Trump’s withdrawal decision “that was seemingly taken without the president’s closest advisers.”
She predicted the pullout would be “hugely beneficial not only to ISIS, but Russia, Iran and of course [Syrian president Bashar] Assad.”
“Do the America people understand that since May [Trump has] deployed 14,000 to Saudi Arabia,” she asked.
“This is not on the level,” she said of the withdrawal.
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