Rep. Peter King said Friday that just because Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists were unsuccessful in attacking an air base where U.S. Marines were training Iraqi soldiers "doesn't mean that it couldn't work in the future."
"It doesn't mean that something bad couldn't have been done," the New York Republican told
Greta Van Susteren on her Fox News program. "Nine miles is no distance at all.
"If anytime the enemy is nine miles away from you, that's a lot closer than it was a few days ago," King said.
Twenty-five ISIS fighters, some wearing Iraqi Army uniforms,
infiltrated the al-Asad air base in remote western Iraq.
Most of the attackers, some of whom were suicide bombers, were killed by Iraqi security forces guarding the base, said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary.
No U.S. troops were involved — and Iraqi forces suffered no casualties, Kirby said. The base had be re-secured by the Iraqi forces, who were being trained by the Marines.
The base has been under attack by ISIS since the terrorists took over the nearby city of al-Baghdadi, about 50 miles northwest of Ramadi in Anbar province. The city is less than nine miles from the base.
King told Van Susteren that the attack "shows the incremental growth by ISIS. More should be done to take out ISIS, to go after them — whether it's air attacks or whatever.
"But let's not play this game forever, where we are hoping they will keep running ill-prepared attacks," he added. "They only have to get through once. They only have to be successful once. Nine miles is a pretty short distance."
King said he wants the U.S. to "go more on offense" to destroy the terrorists.
"I don't like the idea of just waiting there for them to come," he said. "If you are just back on defense, things can go bad.
"We should go back after them — routing them out of al-Baghdadi, putting them on defense," he said. "We shouldn't just be sitting there.
"All they have to do is be lucky once — and it would be an absolute catastrophe if anyone was captured or killed on that base," King said. "With that type of proximity, I wouldn't be so cavalier about it."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.