Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton is blasting the president over his failed policy in Iraq.
Moulton, who served four tours in Iraq, was with the first company of Marines to enter Baghdad in 2003. The former Marine captain is now a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
When his closest friend in the Iraqi Army died in an ISIS attack outside Mosul last week, Moulton came forward forcefully to call for change in policy.
The Harvard graduate, who represents Massachusetts’ 6th congressional district, is now pushing legislation that would require the Obama administration to “create and explain a long-term strategy against the terror group.”
Rep. Moulton told the Marine Corps Times that this move is essential “so that we don’t continue playing whack-a-mole in the Middle East.”
The news of his friend being killed overseas has clearly affected the former Marine Corps officer. He went online to social media to tell the world what a great man Lt. Col. Ehab Hashem Moshen was.
He was not just a brave soldier and admired leader, he said, but Ehab was a loving father and “one of the best men I have ever known.”
“He went out on missions and ensured the best Iraqis were assigned to work with us… he risked his life to protect mine,” Moulton told the Times.
What’s really frustrating, Moulton says, is that the battle that took Moshen’s life was completely unnecessary. “The terrible tragedy of Ehab’s death [is that] he died fighting a battle we had already won,” he said.
Moulton believes that because the Obama administration doesn’t have a long-term political plan for stability to ensure the peace in Iraq, the Iraqis are now re-fighting the same battles that the Americans fought a decade ago.
“What is missing is the political dimension to ensure the stability of Iraq after we are done with the military so we don’t have to keep sending troops into the same battles again and again.”
He also added, however, that the military does have a strong plan to defeat ISIS which is going “quite well”.
Moulton has authored an amendment to the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act that would require a “semi-annual report on political and military strategies to defeat ISIS.” It received unanimous, bipartisan support from the House Armed Services Committee and approval from the Foreign Affairs Committee.
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