Leader of Jihadist Onslaught in Iraq Released on Obama's Watch

By Joseph Klein

On October 22nd, 2007, Osama bin Laden admitted in an audiotape, entitled "Message to the people of Iraq," that al Qaeda was losing the war in Iraq because it had made mistakes and no longer had the allegiance of Sunni insurgents who had switched sides. When Barack Obama became president on January 20, 2009, the war in Iraq was essentially won. The al Qaeda-backed insurgency was reduced to smoldering embers. George W. Bush's surge had succeeded.

Safely behind bars at the time was Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, an al Qaeda-linked point man who was imprisoned at Camp Bucca in Iraq, after being captured by U.S. forces in 2005. According to a Pentagon assessment at the time, al Baghdadi "would kidnap individuals or entire families, accuse them, pronounce sentence and then publicly execute them." However, the Obama administration decided to shut down the Bucca prison camp and hand over its prisoners to the Iraqi government, including Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, in 2009. The Iraqi government later released him. Al Baghadi boasted to the U.S. soldiers who had held him prisoner, "I’ll see you in New York." [more...]