The 'unknown unknowns' of confronting ISIS in Iraq

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http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/the-unknown-unknowns-of-confronting-isis-in-iraq-1.2794261

http://i.cbc.ca/1.2794299.1412886527!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/mideast-crisis-obama.jpg

Barack Obama thanks members of the U.S. military for their service after meetings with the Pentagon's senior leadership to review the campaign against ISIS earlier this week. The president had been unusually critical of the military intelligence he had been receiving on the Islamist group.

The 'unknown unknowns' of confronting ISIS in Iraq
By Brian Stewart, CBC News Posted: Oct 09, 2014 4:36 PM ET Last Updated: Oct 10, 2014 1:06 PM ET

One striking similarity between Canada's first combat mission to Iraq and our long, draining involvement in the Afghan war is the almost total lack of credible military intelligence at the outset.

We knew almost nothing about the Taliban for years, even as we began fighting them, and we know even less about ISIS now.

It was Ottawa's abysmal lack of intel in 2005 that allowed us to eagerly lobby NATO to put us in charge of Kandahar province, the Taliban's home base.

Four frustrating years later, our small contingent of under 3,000 troops was having limited success in suppressing escalating Taliban operations there, and a large U.S. Marine surge was needed to take over the combat lead.