Pentagon leaders favored arming Syrian rebels

The Pentagon’s top leaders testified Thursday that they favored supplying weapons to rebels engaged in a civil war with the Syrian government, something the White House has resolutely opposed.

View Photo Gallery — Syrian fighting continues in Damascus, Aleppo: The Free Syrian Army and Syrian troops fight in the nation’s capital, while recovery continues in other parts of the country secured by rebel forces.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made only a brief mention of their stance on Syria during a hearing called by the Senate Armed Services Committee to investigate the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, last year.

At the tail end of a line of questioning about Benghazi, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked Panetta and Dempsey whether they supported a plan that the lawmaker said was proposed last summer by then-CIA Director David H. Petraeus — and supported by the State Department — “that we provide weapons to the resistance in Syria.”

“We do,” Panetta said.

“You did support that?” McCain asked again.

“We did,” added Dempsey, who was sitting next to Panetta. Neither Dempsey nor Panetta elaborated further.

McCain appeared taken aback by the answer. A few hours later, he issued a statement saying he was “very pleased” to learn of the position taken by the Pentagon leaders. McCain also criticized President Obama for not authorizing arms shipments to Syrian rebels, saying: “What this means is that the president overruled the senior leaders of his own national security team.”

A White House official, asked about the apparent internal rift and whether the administration was reconsidering its position, said: “We don’t have any comment.”

A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy deliberations, confirmed that Panetta and Dempsey “supported looking into the idea last year” of directly arming Syrian guerrillas.

The official added that the two Pentagon leaders “understand the difficulties” of supplying weapons and currently support Obama’s policy of giving non-lethal aid to the Syrian opposition.

It remains unclear, however, whether the split persists or if the Pentagon, State Department and CIA are still pressing the White House to change its mind.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland declined to comment on the remarks by Panetta and Dempsey, saying she would not “talk about internal policy deliberations of the government.”

Obama has consistently opposed the idea of arming the Syrian resistance, saying that U.S. involvement could backfire and noting that some factions are allied with al-Qaeda.

The U.S. government has provided humanitarian aid and nonlethal equipment, such as radios and other communications equipment, to Syrian rebel groups. But the Obama administration has not gone as far as some other countries, such as Qatar, which are directly arming the opposition.

During the rest of the hearing, Panetta and Dempsey defended the Pentagon’s response to the September attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, saying that U.S. forces were too far away to respond effectively.

Panetta told the Armed Services Committee that it would have taken nine to 12 hours for warplanes or armed drones to reach Libya, too late to mount a counterattack on gunmen who killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Even if fighter jets or gunships could have scrambled more quickly to North Africa from bases in Europe, Panetta cast doubt on whether they could have intervened. He said the military lacked good information to sort out the chaotic events on the ground.

“You can’t just willy-nilly send F-16s there and blow the hell out of a place without knowing what’s taking place,” he said. “You can’t send AC-130s there and blow the hell out of a target without knowing what’s taking place. You’ve got to be able to have good information.”

But Republican lawmakers criticized Panetta and Dempsey for not having stronger contingency plans to respond more quickly in Libya. They pointed out that Islamist militants had carried out several attacks against foreign consulates and diplomats in Benghazi in the preceding weeks, and that it was well known that the temporary U.S. mission there was vulnerable.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) chided Dempsey for “a very weak response and reaction to this incident,” adding: “You knew what was happening in Benghazi. You failed to respond in a way that provided security to that particular United States mission complex.”

In response, Dempsey said Benghazi was not the only place where American diplomats were confronting threats that day, the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He pointed out that embassies in Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan were under assault by protesters or mobs. He also said the State Department had not specifically asked the Pentagon to provide extra security in Benghazi.

Dempsey and Panetta said that once the attack on Benghazi started, it was essentially too late — there was no way for U.S. forces to respond in time.

“If they weren’t in the immediate vicinity, they would not have been able to affect the outcome,” Dempsey said.

By Craig Whitlock,

Karen DeYoung and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

sourche: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-leaders-said-they-favored-arming-syrian-rebels/2013/02/07/aff3e10c-715a-11e2-b5f8-9a5465abcc30_story.html