Updated

The former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency said the White House can’t say it was not made aware of the growing threat ISIS posed in the region in an exclusive interview Monday with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on “The Kelly File.”

Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said what President Obama has received from the national intelligence system on ISIS is “very accurate,” but may not have met a “narrative” out of the White House.

“It is a cancer inside of the Islamic religion, and the White House and the President have not wanted to say that,” he said.

Flynn told Kelly after he stood over the body of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Al Qaeda leader in Iraq who was killed in an airstrike in 2006; he knew the problem of radical militants in the country was not yet over.

“We felt good about it, but we knew the problem wasn’t going to end with his death,” Flynn said. “It hasn’t gotten any better. It has doubled or tripled in size of the scope of the problem.”

“Where the intelligence starts and stops is at the White House,” he told Kelly. “The president sets the priorities.”