US military officials opposed to Syria truce: Pundit

Press TV has spoken to Brian Becker, with the ANSWER Coalition from Washington, and Frederick Peterson, a US congressional defense policy advisor from New York, to review the recent US airstrike that targeted Syrian army troops in the city of Dayr al-Zawr.

Brian Becker said, the reason behind a US-led airstrike against a Syrian army base in Dayr al-Zawr is that the Pentagon, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and some American generals are “openly critical of the agreement” that was signed between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to put in place a ceasefire in Syria.

US military officials have warned that “they may not implement the second stage of the ceasefire even if the first stage is successful,” the commentator noted, arguing that the airstrike against the Syrian military base was “a deliberate act to sabotage the truce agreement and that is a real game plan by those in the Obama administration who do not support” the deal.

On Saturday, a US-led coalition attack in the eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr killed more than 60 Syrian soldiers and injured over a hundred others.

Questioned about Washington's real intention in dealing with the Daesh terrorist group, he said, “I don’t think the United States’ military or the Obama administration is serious about the defeat of ISIS (Daesh) in Syria. I don’t even think they’re trying to degrade them in a serious way.”

Becker further recalled that US jets were able to detect and destroy large numbers of Daesh forces when they moved across open desert to stage an offensive and capture the Syrian historic city of Palmyra in 2015. But they fell short of striking them, because “obviously the priority then was not to destroy or degrade Daesh,” he analyzed.

Also speaking on Press TV’s program ‘The Debate,’ Frederick Peterson pointed to the bombardment of the Syrian base in Dayr al-Zawr, and said, “Although the explanations behind the fact are to be examined and yet revealed, it is in fact a direct violation of that ceasefire agreement, putting into jeopardy the subsequent implementation of that agreement.”

According to Peterson, despite the fact that both US and Australian aircraft were involved in the recent airstrike in Dayr al-Zawr, “the mission was assigned by American commanders.”

On September 9, Russia and the United States agreed on a milestone deal on the Syrian crisis after some 13 hours of marathon talks in the Swiss city of Geneva.

The deal, which began on September 12 and was initially agreed to last seven days, calls for increased humanitarian aid for those trapped inside the embattled northwestern city of Aleppo.

Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Russian and American fighter jets would then launch joint airstrikes and pound the positions of Takfiri terrorist groups in Syria.

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