Politico - With all the U.S.-trained fighters dead, captured or missing and their leader in the hands of Al Qaeda, top U.S. commanders are scrambling this week to determine how to revive the half-billion dollar program to create a moderate Syrian army to fight the Islamic State.
The outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, who viewed the force as a critical element of the military strategy in both Syria and Iraq, is conferring with top Pentagon officials behind closed doors to figure out what options are left for what is widely considered a policy and military failure, according to senior defense officials.
A year after Congress authorized the Syrian train and equip program, to the tune of $500 million, even Republican hawks are no longer willing to throw their support behind it — including some who think it should be scrapped altogether.
"It’s a bad, bad sick joke," Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told reporters, calling the decision to authorize the program in the first place a mistake.
Sen. Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat who sits on the Appropriations Committee, returned from a trip to the region last week where he was briefed on the effort. His assessment of the program: "a bigger disaster than I could have ever imagined."
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