Getty Carson claims Al Qaeda was not 'an existential threat' in 2003

Ben Carson wants to increase military intervention in Syria because he sees Islamic State militants as an existential threat to the United States, something he said was not an issue with Al Qaeda in 2003.

“A lot of Americans really think back to 2003, and they remember Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda,” Carson explained at a Nevada rally on Sunday, according to MSNBC. “They say, ‘we never should have gone in there and destabilized it.’ And they may be right about that."


“But here’s the problem, Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda at that time was not an existential threat to us. The global jihad movement is an existential threat. They want to destroy us and everything that has to do with us,” the retired neurosurgeon continued, even though Al Qaeda was the force behind the 9/11 attacks.

Carson, along with many in the Republican field, have criticized Obama’s strategy in Syria, particularly in the wake of the bloody terrorist attack in Paris on Friday that killed more than 130 people and wounded 350.

On Monday he called for the Obama administration to refuse Syrian refugees and promised a new strategy if he becomes president. "Tell Congress to defund the Obama Administration's plan to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees into America," Carson tweeted with a link to his website.

“The era of arm-chair quarterbacking our military will end in the Carson Administration. We must empower our military to destroy #ISIS,” he tweeted. “Talk is cheap. When we draw a line in the sand or boundary in the air, the world - most importantly #ISIS - needs to understand we mean it,” he followed.

Carson's campaign did not immediately respond to request for comment.