It is "absolutely impossible" President Barack Obama was unaware how powerful the Islamic State (ISIS) had become before it began taking over a large swath of Iraq this summer, says Rep. Michelle Bachmann.
The Minnesota Republican told Fox News Channel's
"The O'Reilly Factor" on Tuesday that Congress was aware of ISIS' existence almost two years ago.
"Before Christmas (2013) we knew this was a real problem," she said, and they had heard it was rising before that.
The White House knew at least as much as Congress, Bachmann said, presumably more.
"It's absolutely impossible" Obama didn't know, she said. "It's either incredible or derelict."
She said at one point earlier this year members of both parties in Congress "gave it to the administration and said, you guys better wake up."
But the administration couldn't see what was in front of its face, she said, because it was living in a "fantasy world" that they had ended the Iraq war by pulling all U.S. troops out of Iraq and had decimated al-Qaida.
"They couldn't take the fact that reality didn’t' match up with their fantasy," Bachmann said.
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