Waltz: We Have to Reconsider Counterterror Posture in Places Like Afghanistan, Where There’s ‘a Caliphate Again’

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), who is President-Elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be national security adviser, stated that terrorists “didn’t get the memo that the war on terror is over.” And there has to be a “day one relook” at counterterrorism strategy, including “a hard look at our strategy overseas, our posture, our basing for our special operators and our intelligence operatives to keep a lid on ISIS, al-Qaeda, and others, whether it’s Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and other places where they may be plotting and planning to hit us.”

Waltz said, “[H]ere’s the bottom line: The terrorists around the world, ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their offshoots didn’t get the memo that the war on terror is over. They still hate us, they are plotting and planning to attack us. And we have to be on maximum guard. We have kept President Trump informed throughout the last 24, 48 hours. And look, two things: One, we’ve got to take a hard look at our defenses. First and foremost, close our border, where we’ve had over 300 people on the terrorist watchlist traverse our border in the last years, number one. Number two, I’ll remind everyone, just in the last year, we had eight ISIS operatives rolled up, surveilling sites to hit in three different cities, a number of them from that cell are still unaccounted for, based out of Tajikistan. And there’s a defensive aspect of this, the law enforcement and intelligence, and then there’s the offensive aspect and taking a hard look at our strategy overseas, our posture, our basing for our special operators and our intelligence operatives to keep a lid on ISIS, al-Qaeda, and others, whether it’s Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and other places where they may be plotting and planning to hit us.”

He added, “I can’t emphasize enough, close the border, secure our sovereignty. And that is completely unacceptable, the entire world knows that we have an open border, they intend to hit us, and they are pushing people into our interior to do just that. And they know that if we’re looking internally at ourselves, we can’t be defending ourselves abroad. So, that entire counterterrorism strategy, particularly now that they have a caliphate again in Afghanistan, where ISIS and al-Qaeda are brewing, has to — we just have to do a complete day one relook.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett