Jeb Bush urges military to take action in to take out the Islamic State on CNN. Bush to Obama: 'Unleash the military'

Jeb Bush assailed the Obama administration's efforts to take out the Islamic State on Wednesday, calling for the United States to “unleash the military” in concert with partners in Europe and the Middle East.

Appearing on CNN's “New Day,” the Republican presidential candidate was asked whether he would advocate sending more grounds troops to the region to call in the airstrikes. Bush remarked that 50 special operators authorized to advise in Syria “is better than what existed before, but it's not a strategy.”


“A strategy would be how do we mobilize support for the remnants of the Syrian Free Army, and it might require combat troops to inspire an international effort. I would let the military commanders give the commander in chief options rather than tell them what you want to hear,” Bush said in a remote interview from Charlotte, North Carolina. “And so having — not having gotten those options, I can't tell you if we are going to have boots on the ground but certainly, a more expanded role for the special operators would be essential. And being more effective in strikes as it is relates to the air.”

In recounting a recent episode in which the White House was reported to have dropped fliers to tell civilians in the area of a planned drone strike to leave the area nearly an hour in advance, Bush slammed that approach in general but not in that specific scenario.

“Just last week, there was a convoy of stolen refined oil and diesel going to Turkey to be sold. And they sent out fliers to the — dropped fliers before they started striking to the truck drivers to tell them to abandon, ’cause they may not have been ISIS supporters,” Bush recounted, referring to the incident in which the military dropped leaflets telling truck drivers to leave their vehicles and run.

“My gosh, that's not how you fight a war,” he exclaimed. “You need to destroy their abilities to garner money.”

In that particular instance, he said, doing so “was the appropriate action, but tying the hands of the war fighters the way that this administration has done shows that this is a law enforcement exercise, not a fight — not a military fight.”

“And so, we need to unleash the military in unison with our partners in Europe and the Middle East to be effective in this regard,” he said.

As for Bush's lackluster poll numbers that have persisted into mid-to-late November, CNN's Alisyn Camerota pointed to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Sunday that showed him largely stagnant from the previous month, at 6 percent.

“There’s always a silver lining in these polls, that poll also showed that I beat Hillary Clinton by a higher margin than any other Republican candidate. And that’s my case,” he said, though the ABC poll did not run general election ballot tests in that survey.

But a Fox News poll also released on Sunday in which Bush polled 5 percent did suggest that 45 percent to 39 percent of voters preferred him over Clinton in the general election, the lowest share for the former secretary of state in the head-to-head matchups against potential Republican opponents.