Carson: Al Qaeda was not an ‘existential threat’ in 2003

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson this weekend justified his call for more military muscle in Iraq and Syria by saying that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) poses a greater threat than al Qaeda did slightly more than a decade ago.

“A lot of Americans really think back to 2003, and they remember [late Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda,” the retired neurosurgeon said at a rally in Nevada on Sunday, according to NBC News. “They say, ‘We never should have gone in there and destabilized it.’ And they may be right about that.”

{mosads}”But here’s the problem: Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda at that time was not an existential threat to us,” Carson added.

“The global jihad movement is an existential threat. They want to destroy us and everything that has to do with us.”

The comments could prove to be a liability for Carson, who is near the top of the presidential polls but has faced lingering questions about his fluency in foreign policy and national security.

Last week, Carson repeatedly insisted that China was involved in the ongoing chaos in Syria, despite rebuttals from the White House and national security experts.  

With regard to ISIS, the U.S. could either “sit around and act like they are the jayvee,” Carson said, in reference to an oft-criticized quote from President Obama, “and that they aren’t going to do anything and that they’re only significant over there.

“Or we can use every resource available to us to destroy them first.”

Al Qaeda’s U.S. attack on Sept. 11, 2001, dramatically altered the nation’s foreign policy objectives and launched the U.S. into what has now been an extended 14-year campaign in the Middle East and South Asia. The U.S. military fight in Afghanistan — which had harbored al Qaeda and its leader, the late Osama bin Laden — was the longest war in the country’s history.

In 2003, key officials within the Bush administration and throughout Washington insisted that Hussein’s government possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, leading to a massive ground invasion from which the country is still struggling to rebuild.

Carson has repeatedly said he opposed the war in Iraq.