Sec. Austin Responds To Netanyahu Calls For U.S. To ‘Fast Track’ Weapons Shipments To Israel

3 months ago

During a press briefing on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin delivered remarks on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's remarks to Congress.

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Transcript

00:00Again, we do have limited time,

00:01so I appreciate your limiting your follow-ups.

00:03Let's go to Al Arbiya, Joseph.

00:06Mr. Secretary, just to follow up on Prime Minister Netanyahu's

00:10comments yesterday, that he said that he wanted to fast-track,

00:14he wanted U.S. weapons fast-tracked.

00:16He said that this would lead to a quicker end

00:18to the war in Gaza.

00:20Your former top official, who departed just in January

00:23on Middle East policy, said that the faster delivery

00:26of U.S. weapons is or will not enable

00:28a faster end to the war.

00:30There's no end to the war if the ends are total victory

00:32or only defined in military terms.

00:34Can you say whether you agree with that assessment or not?

00:37And General, I wanted to ask about the Houthis again.

00:41There's been some criticism in recent days and weeks

00:44from U.S. military officials,

00:46including from the CENTCOM commander,

00:48about the U.S.-led mission to counter the Houthis,

00:53that maybe the current mission is not succeeding.

00:57Can you talk about any recommendations that you've made

00:59that the administration has not heeded or listened to,

01:02or what more could be done other than,

01:04you mentioned more than just military operations

01:07or related matters.

01:09What else could be done specifically?

01:11Thanks for the question.

01:15Regarding the speed of delivery

01:17of security assistance to Israel,

01:21we have provided security assistance to Israel

01:25at record pace.

01:27And we've done that from the very beginning.

01:29We're able to do that because we learned a lot of lessons

01:32from our efforts to provide security assistance to Ukraine.

01:36And you saw what happened initially.

01:41This conflict, well, the Israelis were attacked.

01:45A couple of days later,

01:47we had security assistance flowing in on the airfield there

01:52to our allies there in Israel.

01:56We have sustained that throughout.

01:58And again, we're gonna continue to do that.

02:02We're gonna continue to ensure

02:04that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.

02:07But again, in terms of the prime minister's comments,

02:11I won't comment on that.

02:13What I will tell you is I'm gonna stay focused

02:15on doing what we've done to date,

02:17providing Israel what it needs to be successful.

02:22Well, I'll just tell you,

02:23I'm not gonna get into internal deliberation discussions

02:25and tell you what recommendations I made or didn't make

02:27or what was taken or not taken.

02:29But I will say is that what we are doing

02:31is actually taking away capability from the Houthis

02:34from the military aspect.

02:36But to address this, it's gonna take broader

02:39than just the military strikes.

02:43There's an inspection regime of things

02:45that is of smuggling that we can work through.

02:48There's also other things from a sanction standpoint

02:52and many of the tools that you're probably familiar with.

02:55And that's the conversation of the things that we need to do

02:57not just with the US, but just in the international community

02:59and to raise the awareness of the impact of,

03:04there is a full of navigation now, but there is an impact.

03:06And so how do we collectively internationally look at this

03:11so we can get that free flow of commerce

03:12back through the Red Sea and the bottom of the net?

03:16Okay, let's go to NBC.

03:19Mr. Secretary.

Sec. Austin Responds To Netanyahu Calls For U.S. To ‘Fast Track’ Weapons Shipments To Israel

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