Santorum: IS quoted me more accurately than N.Y. Times

NEW YORK, April 3 (UPI) -- Former Sen. Rick Santorum, whose anti-Islamic State comments appeared in an IS publication, said he was quoted more accurately than in The New York Times.

A lengthy quote by the former Pennsylvania senator, who is considering running for the 2016 presidential nomination, was published in the English-language IS magazine Dabiq. His remarks appeared in a column called "In the Words of the Enemy" and offered comments from U.S. leaders critical of IS. The column presented quotes from Santorum, Virginia Sen. Richard Black and former CIA officer Gary Berntsen on the topic of IS's future strength.

Santorum is quoted as saying, "This caliphate has been established and that means they are calling people from all over the world to come and fight this battle. As long as they hold ground and continue to expand that ground, more and more will come. The fact that we are delaying means that the caliphate continues to exist. They are not losing ground. They are not being discredited in the eyes of the Muslim world. They will get stronger."

The quote comes from a Fox News interview with Santorum in February.

This week, in another Fox News interview, Santorum credited the magazine for quoting him correctly, saying, "The difference is ISIS actually quoted me accurately, compared to The New York Times, which is sort of a remarkable comment on the state of the media today. They [the magazine] put it out there because it accurately described who they are, which is, again, a comment on this administration and their unwillingness to deal directly with the truth about who ISIS is. They're a global jihadist movement. They've established a caliphate; they want to expand that caliphate. And I explained what that was about. So, I took it as them actually finding an American politician who actually described them as who they really are."