[Daily Caller] Gen. David Petraeus, former U.S. force commander for Iraq and Afghanistan, said the maligned Iraqi security forces shouldn't be underestimated, despite their failure to prevent Islamic State extremists from capturing huge swaths of land.The military failure was more a measure of "political meddling" by Baghdad, he said during a 9/11 memorial event in Denver. With a new government in place and with a strong guiding hand from U.S. military consultants, Petraeus said Iraq is well positioned to route ISIS forces from positions in Mosul and other areas they've overtaken.
He also said ISIS shouldn't be overestimated as to their abilities or the support they may have among local Sunni tribes. Al Qaeda in Iraq, the extremist group he helped defeat during the 2007 troop surge, had much deeper roots in the communities it controlled, he said, and presented a more daunting challenge than ISIS today.