Real estate mogul and 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said he would “bomb the hell” out of oil sites he says are controlled by the Islamic State terrorist group and then get oil companies to go in and rebuild them.
“The situation with [Islamic Stat] has to be dealt [with] firmly and strongly when you have people being beheaded,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “I would love not to be over there — that’s not our fight. That’s other people’s fights, that’s revolutions, that’s whatever you want to call it … religious wars.”
“I would do things that would be so tough that I don’t even know if they’d be around to come to the table,” he said. “I would take away their wealth. I would take away the oil. What you should be doing now is taking away the oil.”
“I’ll tell you what I hate about this question — if I win … I didn’t want to answer this question and I thought maybe I could go without answering [it], because if you look at the great General George Patton or General MacArthur, who I was a big fan of, or any of these great [generals], they didn’t talk about what they did,” he continued.
“In fact, if you remember when I said I have a plan but I don’t want to talk about it — the problem is everyone said, ’oh, he really doesn’t have plan,’” he said. “So I had to do it. But I hate talking about it, because if I win they know I’m going to do it. If I win, I would attack those oil sites that are … controlled by ISIS.”
“They’re taking tremendous money out — they are renovating a hotel in Iraq — can you believe it?” he said.
Asked if he would be destroying the wealth of Iraq, Mr. Trump said: “There is no Iraq.”
“There are no Iraqis — they’re broken up into so many different factions,” he said.
“I’d bomb the hell out of the oil fields,” he said. “I’d then get Exxon, I’d then get these great oil companies to go in — they would rebuild them so fast your head will spin … you ever see how fast they put up rigs? These guys are unbelievable.”
Asked if you’d need U.S. troops to protect the oil companies, Mr. Trump said: “Yes — you put a ring around ’em. You put a ring — you’ve just taken all of the wealth away. This is what should be done. But no politician’s [going to] do that.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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