Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — The administration of President Barack Obama has acknowledged that its Syria rebel aid program failed.

A senior U.S. diplomat told Congress that the hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to Sunni rebels have not made a dent in the three-year war against President Bashar Assad.

The diplomat, Anne Patterson, said most of the aid never arrived to so-called moderate rebel militias.

“Absolutely we’re not doing enough to help the moderate opposition,” Ms. Patterson, the outgoing ambassador to Egypt and nominated to become the next Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East, said. “And our deliveries certainly of nonlethal equipment have been stymied by a series of logistical issues and security issues.”

In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 26, Ms. Patterson, indicating that U.S. equipment was pilfered by corrupt militia chiefs, said the administration halted aid deliveries to Sunni rebels from December 2013 through February 2014. She said previous U.S. nonlethal aid to the rebels, including the Western-backed Supreme Military Command, were seized by Al Qaida’s Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.

“Providing this support to groups engaged in a highly fluid battle zone
has been challenging,” Ms. Patterson said. “In December, an SMC warehouse in
Syria containing U.S. supplies was overrun by a faction of extremist
fighters. We suspended SMC assistance until they could reestablish secure
supply routes and storage facilities. By February, when the SMC regained
control of its facility and accounted for its contents, we began sending
supplies again — this time directly to trusted commanders.”

The administration has allocated $260 million in non-lethal aid,
identified as food, medical equipment and communications. About $80 million
was meant to support SMC, the overall rebel command that includes the Free
Syrian Army.

Congress has long complained of Obama’s failure to implement his
promises to help overthrow Assad. At the hearing, Sen. Bob Corker, the
ranking Republican, said the administration has allowed the Syrian war to
fester until it threatened the United States.

“We have no strategy in Syria; we haven’t had one since day one,” Corker
said. “U.S. policy has completely failed to shift the balance of power,
improve the humanitarian situation, or achieve the president’s stated goal
of removing Assad.”

After nearly two years of predicting Assad’s fall, the U.S. intelligence
community has concluded that the Damascus regime was growing stronger amid
massive support by Iran and Russia. The community asserted that this could
halt Assad’s cooperation for the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons
arsenal.

During the hearing, officials said the administration was drafting new
options to stop Assad and end the three-year war. They acknowledged that
Washington has not honored its pledges to help what they termed the
“moderate opposition.”

“We are trying to change our strategy,” Ms. Patterson said. “None of the
non-lethal assistance we are providing will be determinative in defeating
regime forces, nor will it, on its own, force Asad to change his calculus
about trying to hold on to power.”

  Anne Patterson, Bashar Assad, Sen. Bob Corker, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, World’s superpower admits most of its non-lethal aid never reached ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels