The US commander took responsibility for the RAID in Yemen
The top us commander for the Middle East took full responsibility Thursday for a controversial January RAID in Yemen that led to the deaths of Navy seals and a few civilians.
"I'm responsible for this mission", - said the commander of U.S. Central command General Joseph Votel at the Senate Committee on armed services. "I accept responsibility for it. We have lost a lot in this operation."
"We lost valuable operator", Votel continued, referring to the death of a senior petty officer William "Ryan" Owens. "We had wounded, we suffered losses among the civilian population, have lost an expensive plane."
In turn, the administration trump praised the operation designed to collect intelligence about al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and targeting its leadership - how to succeed. But lawmakers desperately challenged this response and demanded more answers about the operation. Father Owens called for the investigation. On Thursday, however, Votel defended the operation and behavior of the participants, stating that he saw no signs of "incompetence, bad decisions or bad judgments."
Trump spoke about the importance of the RAID in his joint speech before Congress in February, when the White house spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters at the time that the mission "has an incredible amount of information, which will prevent potential deaths or attacks on American soil". But some lawmakers-Republicans rejected the evaluation of RAID, which was first allowed by President Donald trump.
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