Tuesday, September 3, 2013

WATCH: Senator Flake's Questioning of Kerry, Dempsey Re: Syria Strike; Effectiveness of Possible Strike Not Harmed By Delay

Arizona Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) had his opportunity to question Secretary of State John Kerry and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Martin Dempsey today during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee open hearing.  As he had indicated earlier in the day on Fox News, he was primarily concerned with the strategy of waiting for Congressional approval before striking at Syria.
(click on link to watch video on C-Span's website)

Flake started off asking Kerry about the timing and about asking Congress after the President had already decided.  Kerry noted that the U.S. military even sees some benefits in waiting, because they can monitor Syria's moves and adjust the strike's plans accordingly.  Flake questioned Dempsey on this point, and he agreed that waiting would not harm the effectiveness of any strike.

Flake then asked Kerry what the President would do if Congress does not vote to approve a strike.  Kerry said that in places like North Korea, Iran and Syria, there would be celebrations while others around the world would mourn the setback in the U.S.'s world leadership.

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2 comments:

  1. UnknownSeptember 4, 2013 at 5:50 PM

    No wonder no comments....no video feed!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mitch M.September 8, 2013 at 10:18 AM

    Sorry, Robert! That was frustrating for me, too. C-Span's website was doing weird things that night - I can only guess that they were experiencing higher-than-usual traffic from people like us. I even went through the time-consuming effort of clipping it a 2nd time, and trying to embed that. (Neither worked, and it kept telling me they were saved, then not saved.) I gave up, and hours later, both clips were in my saved list and it was up on the blog; that's why I concluded it was the traffic.

    I hope you came back and looked later!

    ReplyDelete