CARACAS (Dispatches) – Former United States secretary of defense Mark Esper has revealed in a book that former U.S. president Donald Trump put on the table on February 5, 2020 the possibility that U.S. military forces “would undo” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Trump made the offer to opposition leaders Juan Guaidó, Julio Borges, Carlos Vecchio and Mauricio Claver-Carone, who met with the U.S. president at the White House.
“What would happen if the U.S. Army went down and got rid of Maduro?” Trump asked, according to Esper, who points out in his book ‘A Sacred Oath’.
Guaidó then replied that “of course we will always welcome the help of the United States” and stated that the Venezuelans who lived in Colombia “they want to take back their country for themselves”.
Esper then raised whether the Venezuelans would be willing to “organize, train and fight” because “the U.S. Army has experience training foreign forces”.
“Yes I would be,” answered Guaidó, although Esper considers that “didn’t sound too sure”.
The attendees considered that a direct military invasion by the United States was preferable because an invasion from Colombia “it would be complicated”.
“As I sarcastically told the president before the meeting, I am sure that the Venezuelan opposition would ‘fight to the last American’ if we offered it to them,” Esper has pointed out.
“However, Guaidó and Claver-Carone managed a special mercenary operation similar to the assassination of the president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, killed in an attack by former Colombian soldiers,” he added.
Trump despised Guaidó because they went to ask “that U.S. soldiers invaded his country while Maduro fought against the invasion” in reference to what is known as Operation Gideon, Esper pointed out.
“That is why Trump always thought that Guaidó was ‘weak’, unable to replace President Maduro, whom he saw as ‘strong’,” he stated.
Guaidó, Borges and Vecchio argued that “it would be easier and faster if the United States did it for us”.
“Esper asked again: ‘If some of those Venezuelans could be trained and equipped by the United States, would they be willing to fight?’ He never had a clear answer: ‘they told me it was very complicated and would take a long time’,” Esper has recounted.
The former Secretary of Defense has revealed another meeting held on June 9, 2020 with the White House National Security Adviser, Robert O’Brien, who proposed an air or amphibious attack on the José Antonio Anzoátegui Refining Complex to paralyze the oil economy and, with the chaos and popular suffering, overthrow Maduro and impose Guaidó as head of government.
These plans eventually materialized in Operation Gideon, in which two former members of the U.S. special forces led nearly 60 Venezuelan dissidents who entered the country in boats with the intention of apprehending and overthrowing Maduro.