Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, the official who served as the director of intelligence during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, revealed in a tell-all interview that key decisions made by the George W. Bush administration during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan helped create ISIS.

“As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him,” Flynn said. “The same is true for Moammar Gadhafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that decision.”

Flynn’s main complaint was that the nation’s visceral reaction after 9/11 caused the president and the military to act impulsively and unwittingly sow the seeds of more Islamic fundamentalism. He specifically referred to the 2003 Iraq Invasion, which was launched without valid evidence that Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda.

“When 9/11 occurred, all the emotions took over, and our response was, ‘Where did those bastards come from? Let’s go kill them. Let’s go get them,'” he said.

Now Flynn says that President Obama is making the same mistake by pledging to “ultimately destroy” ISIS.

“We may cause it to change its name, but we are never going to destroy this organization,” Flynn said. “Destroy means to completely eliminate — he should not have used those words, those were incorrect words to use and he should have been more precise.”

Does Flynn have a point here? Sound off in the comments.