Exclusive–Marco Rubio: Thanks To Obama, We’re Bombing U.S. Military Equipment Captured By Islamic State

As American war planes are bombing Islamic state terrorists in the Middle East, one of the most frustrating aspects is that the terrorists are often using American military equipment that was once provided to Iraqi forces by the United States.

In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News last week in Las Vegas, Sen. Marco Rubio discussed the frustration felt by many Americans watching video footage of the Islamic State parading American military equipment in their established caliphate.

“They stole that stuff,” Rubio said. “The Iraqi forces abandoned post, leaving behind this equipment and now we have to bomb the equipment that we gave the Iraqi’s five-ten years ago.”

Since the invasion of several areas in Northern Iraq, ISIS has captured thousands of American made military vehicles. After attacking Mosul, ISIS captured 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles from Iraqi forces fleeing their posts, turning some of them into lethal armored suicide bomber machines. Other Islamic State propaganda features American made M1A1 Abrams tanks and armored troop carriers as they continue their wave of terror in Iraq and Syria.

Rubio blamed Obama’s effort to get American forces out of Iraq for causing the problem.

“It didn’t have to be this way, I mean that’s a direct result of the fact that this president ran on the promise of getting us out of Iraq, even if it was premature – at any cost,” Rubio said. “He got us out of Iraq, left behind that equipment to the Iraqis – who within a couple of years had lost it as we predicted would happen.”

Rubio argued that if Obama had left a stronger American presence in Iraq, they wouldn’t have folded against the fierceness of the onslaught from the Islamic State.

“Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or not when it initially happened, after it did, we should have all agreed that now we need to make sure this thing turns out the best way possible and some enduring U.S. presence would have allowed that to prevent what you see now happening,” he said.

It was still important to defeat terrorists in the Middle East, Rubio argued, even though the process appeared to be cyclical at times.

“I understand why Americans are discouraged, but it is more a function of what we have not done than what we did do,” he said.