Republican candidate Scott Brown eviscerated incumbent Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) for taking U.S. ground troops off the table in the battle against the Islamic State.
"The question was ‘Would you agree with the president to send ground troops or not?’" Brown said. "The bottom line is, you’ve already taken it off the table. You’ve taken the greatest fighting force off the table."
Brown laid into Shaheen for failing to recognize that both Kurdish and Iraqi forces are in dire need of aid in fighting back the onslaught of IS (commonly known as ISIS or ISIL) advances:
ISIS is the size of New England right now, and you and the president have taken ground troops off the table, which is the worst thing you can do when you have the greatest fighting force in the world, you take them off the table.
And that’s part of the problem, you’re so supportive of this president, you can’t even say—if General Dempsey and others say we need ground troops—you won’t even say right now that yes, we have to do it.
Brown connected Shaheen to President Obama in aggressively rejecting repeated calls from administration officials—including Leon Panetta—to maintain a troop presence in Iraq in order to prevent the rise of IS.
"But not for that effort, we would not be in this position," Brown said.