Matt Bradley: ‘Very Little Evidence’ For Admin’s ISIS Success Claims

Wall Street Journal Middle East Correspondent Matt Bradley said that there has been “very little evidence” to back the Obama administration’s claims of success against ISIS on Sunday’s “This Week” on ABC.

“The administration has been flogging this idea that they’re making some gains against Islamic State, and that the battlefield momentum that Islamic State first had, when they took over Mosul and advanced to within shouting distance of Baghdad, back in June, that they had reversed that tide. But there’s really very little evidence to point to that. In fact, most of the gains made by anti-ISIS forces have been modest, and they’ve been problematic. Because they’ve been done by Shiite militia groups, by Kurdish Peshmerga, and other people who have vested interest in trying to gain land and trying to subjugate Sunnis in the western part of the country. So, a lot of the on-the-ground victories have really been either very small, or somewhat mixed in terms of results, and in terms of where this country is going” he stated.

Bradley added that “not much has really changed in terms of the Iraqi Security Forces’ ability to fight against Islamic State [since they ran away when faced with ISIS fighters]…it doesn’t look like they’re going to really be able to take the city [Mosul] within the time frame that they’ve announced.”

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