Obama reveals ‘worst mistake’ of his Presidency… and his saddest day

President Barack Obama said that the worst mistake of his presidency was the sheer lack of planning by his government in the aftermath of the 2011 toppling of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Although Obama said he had no regrets about removing Gaddafi from power, the vacuum left behind and the chaos it bred was his “worst mistake”. Speaking to Fox News, the president said his biggest accomplishment in office was “saving the economy from the great depression”. His worst day in office, he said, was having to address the nation in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings.

Probably failing to plan for the day after, what I think was the right thing to do, in intervening in Libya.

President Barack Obama, on his worst mistake

Army General David Rodriguez, head of U.S. Africa Command, told reporters last week that the Islamic State presence in Libya has doubled since 2015 to as many as 6,000 fighters. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Yahoo News in January that he thought White House hopeful Hillary Clinton’s influence “was pivotal in persuading the president to broaden the goal in Libya beyond just saving the people in Benghazi” from Gaddafi’s forces and “essentially focusing more on regime change”.

The president told me that it was one of the closest decisions he’d ever made, sort of 51-49, and I’m not sure that he would’ve made that decision if Secretary Clinton hadn’t supported it.

Robert Gates

Obama Libya