Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden agrees with former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's prediction that the fight with the Islamic State (ISIS) will be like a 30-year war.
"It's not going to be 30 years of American bombing, one hopes," he told J.D. Hayworth on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV Monday.
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However, "it's going to take a generation plus for a new equilibrium to establish in the Middle East," he explained. "Frankly, I agree with that very strongly."
Panetta, who served as CIA director in the Obama administration before heading up the Pentagon, told USA Today that President Barack Obama made decisions that led to the Islamic State (ISIS) gaining as much power as it has in Iraq, primarily by not working harder to convince the Iraqi government to keep a residual force of U.S. troops in Iraq.
Panetta also predicted that the fight against ISIS will be a "kind of a 30-year war."
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According to Hayden, in spite of Obama's vow that he will not send U.S. troops to fight on the ground in its effort to push back ISIS, he predicts that there will be 3,000 to 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq by Christmas.
"No one's calling for American maneuver battalions or maneuver brigades out there leading the assault in the western Iraqi desert," the former Air Force general explained.
But, he says that as Panetta explained in his USA Today interview "you need forces forward, you need forces integrated, you need tactical air control parties, you need special operation forces."
"You can't keep to the false limits we've placed on ourselves," he said. "We're going to have to put forces more forward."
"Quite quietly we've deployed a division headquarters to Iraq," he explained.
He predicts that "we'll see a gradual increase in American presence there."
"I've used the number 3,000 to 5,000 by Christmas, on the ground, and I'm still comfortable with that estimate," he added.
He contends that "the president sticking with this no boots on the ground, in some ways he's underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
"The American people know the nuance — no we're not going to have maneuver brigades there, but we will be embedded with friendly forces," he said.
Hayden said that Obama's "more robust actions" by putting together a coalition to fight ISIS have put the country "in a far better place than we were a month or two ago."
However, he fears that the president changed his strategy on ISIS because polling changed.
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