Elizabeth Trudeau
The White House and U.S. Department of State declined to comment on reports that weapons shipped into Jordan by the Central Intelligence Agency for Syrian rebels have been sold on the black market.
According to reports, some part of the stolen weapons was used in the shootout at the police training centre in Jordan in November 2015, when five people including two US citizens were killed.
Eric Schultz, White House spokesman, advised to contact the U.S. Department of State to ask for information about the police training centre. However, U.S. Department of State can not answer the questions about weapons turned up on the black market.
“We have no comment on that report. There is an ongoing investigation”, U.S. Department of State spokesman, Elizabeth Trudeau, said. But at the same time she couldn’t tell who exactly take part on this investigation.
The CIA don’t comment either on its covert transfers of weapons.
When journalists asked Ms. Trudeau, who else they should ask about this, she just repeated, that she has no comments on that.
Journalists at the briefing didn’t understand, why the U.S. Government should be in the business of providing weapons to anyone, who is not a part of a nation-state’s military, because every time that some rebel group gets its hands on U.S.-provided weapons, they end up being sold on the black market. U.S. Department of State spokesman couldn’t answer this question too.
Some quotes from Daily Press Briefing – June 27, 2016:
Question: I wanted to ask you – there were also allegations that these weapons were actually used to kill Americans, American trainers and so on, in Jordan.
Ms. Trudeau: Yeah.
Question: Can you comment on that?
Ms. Trudeau: I —
…
Question: Is there any reason why the U.S. Government should be in the business of providing weapons to anyone who is not a part of a nation-state’s military? Because it seems every time that some rebel group gets its hands on U.S.-provided weapons, they end up in the wrong hands, they end up being sold for whatever on the black market. Is this something that U.S. foreign policy and military policy really should even be considering?
Ms. Trudeau: I know you’d like a comment on it, Ros. I just can’t at this point. If we have more that I can offer it, we certainly will.
It seems that the USA is ready to continue to supply weapons to Syrian rebels despite all the problems with this idea.