Ex-Cheney Aide: ‘We’re in Great Danger’ in ISIS Fight

The United States is “drinking the Kool-Aid” by not being more aggressive in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), says John Hannah, who served as deputy national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.

“We’re in great danger. The longer this goes on, the higher the cost is going to be to us and our standing in the world and American blood will flow, I fear,” Hannah said Thursday on “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.

“We’re not waging the war that the president declared nine months ago was vital to our interest and in the process, we’re also handing this show over to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which will be a disaster for the U.S.

“The caliphate is getting recruits. It’s winning territory. It’s taking military victories. It’s defeating the greatest superpower in the world, the United States.”

Hannah, senior counselor at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, added that “thousands of Westerners” have already aligned with ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

“These guys [are] all with passports that will bring them back here to the United States,” he told Steve Malzberg.

“And for anybody who doesn’t believe that ISIS at some point and time is going to be directly sponsoring, supervising, and plotting attacks, major attacks against the United States and the West, they’re drinking the Kool-Aid.”

Hannah’s warning came as Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday that the U.S. military is looking to speed up its program to train and equip Iraqi forces. Last week, the key Iraqi city of Ramadi fell to ISIS.