Hours after the United States attacked Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro, US President Donald Trump on Saturday addressed a press conference and said the captured Venezuelan leader was on his way to New York to face the full might of American justice.
“Maduro and his wife will soon face the full might of American justice and stand trial on American soil. Right now they’re on a ship, they’ll be heading to, ultimately, New York,” Trump told a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence at Palm Beach, Florida.
‘Stunning operation’
Trump said Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife were captured in a swift operation hours earlier in Caracas, and were later flown out of the country.
“Late last night and early today, at my direction, the United States Armed Forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela,” Trump said. “Air, land and sea was used to launch a spectacular assault. And it was an assault like people have not seen since World War Two.”
The US President described the operation as “one of the most stunning, effective and powerful displays of American military might”.
‘US will run Venezuela, Oil cos will invest billions’
Trump also announced that the US will run Venezuela until such time a safe, proper and judicious transition can take place.
“We want peace, liberty and justice for the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country. It’s their homeland,” he said.
“We can’t take a chance at somebody else takes over Venezuela that doesn’t have the good of the Venezuelan people in mind. We’ve had decades of that. We’re not going to let that happen,” he added.
Trump further said US oil companies would go into Venezuela and spend billions to revive the crude production there.
“As everyone knows, the oil business in Venezuela has been a bust, a total bust for a long period of time. They were pumping almost nothing by comparison to what they could have been pumping and what could have taken place. We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”
How Maduro was captured
Explaining the operation, President Trump said the Venezuelan leader, Maduro, was captured in the dead of the night and “all Venezuelan military capacities were rendered powerless”.
“It was dark. The lights of Caracas were largely turned off,” Trump said, adding “it was dark and it was deadly.”
General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military action was called Operation Absolute Resolve and involved more than 150 aircraft. The aircraft included F-22s, F-35s, F-18s, EA-18s, E-2s, B-1 bombers, and other support aircraft, as well as remotely piloted drones.
“We arrived at Maduro’s compound at 1:01 am Eastern Standard Time, or 2:01 am Caracas local time, and the apprehension force descended into Maduro’s compound and moved with speed, precision and discipline towards their objective and isolated the area to ensure the safety and security of the ground force,” General Caine told the same press conference.
On why he chose to carry out attacks in Venezuela, Trump said without providing any evidence that Maduro’s government hosted foreign adversaries in the region and acquired “menacing offensive weapons that could threaten us.”
“I will never allow terrorists and criminals to operate with impunity against the United States. This extremely successful operation should serve as a warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives,” Trump said.
