US defence secretary Leon Panetta disclosed that he and the Pentagon supported a proposal by Hillary Clinton, before she stood down as secretary of state last week, to supply rebel forces with weapons.
US president Barack Obama rejected calls from four of the most senior members of his foreign policy team to arm the rebels fighting to overthrow the Syrian regime, it emerged on Thursday night.
US defence secretary Leon Panetta disclosed that he and the Pentagon supported a proposal by Hillary Clinton, before she stood down as secretary of state last week, to supply rebel forces with weapons.
General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, also agreed with Clinton's plan, which received the further backing of David Petraeus, the director of the CIA until late last year.
Answering questions at a Senate committee, Panetta became the first senior Western official publicly to propose arming the rebels to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose forces are estimated to have killed 60,000 in a civil war. "How many more have to die before you recommend military action?" he was asked by John McCain, the Arizona senator. "Did you support the recommendation by then secretary of state Clinton and then head of CIA general Petraeus that we supply weapons to the resistance in Syria?"
"We do," answered Panetta. "We did," added general Dempsey.
Obama resisted pressure from his colleagues, rejecting their plan at the height of his re-election campaign last year. He has said that the risk of American weapons being obtained by radical elements of the rebel forces, who are linked to al-Qaeda, was too great. "One of the things that we have to be on guard about - particularly when we start talking about arming opposition figures - is that we are not indirectly putting arms in the hands of folks that would do Americans harm, or do Israelis harm," Obama said last November.
US officials stressed yesterday that their assistance to the rebels would remain limited to humanitarian aid and non-lethal equipment. However, regional American allies, such as Qatar and Turkey, are believed to be arming the rebels with tacit approval from Washington.
Britain has called for a review of the EU arms embargo on Syria, which expires on March 1, to make it easier to help rebels and allow equipment such as body armour and chemical detectors to be given to the rebel alliance.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, the Syrian regime's closest ally, on Thursday urged it to negotiate with opposition elements and allow free elections. Ahmadinejad did not say whether he supported a peace bid by the head of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, who last week offered to sit down with Syria's vice-president, Farouq al-Sharaa. President Bashar al-Assad has yet to make a formal response.
Panetta's remarks came during a hearing by the Senate armed services committee focusing on the September 11 terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in which the US ambassador and three other Americans were killed.
The hearing was due to be Panetta's final appearance before Congress, where he sat for California in the House of Representatives for 16 years from 1977.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}