I am against this operation but the country and world is better off.
An extraordinary mission dubbed "Operation Absolute Resolve" saw elite troops breach the Venezuelan president's fortified compound.
www.bbc.com
I don't think it was some conspiracy as Aerius proposed it simply means that US has no equal other than maybe China. Could US have done this over some other smaller power just like this? Maybe but not with such precision. Venezuelans simply lacked the hardware.
I have read that Venezuelans lost around 60 soldiers and US suffered some number of undisclosed casualties but no one died on the American side.
US bombed multiple sites around Caracas and were able to turn the power off to the entire capital. They literally practiced on a full scale life sized replica of Maduro's safe house while preparing for the operation. This wasn't some 70% of the country love us type delusional thinking Russia was going on with.
An extraordinary mission dubbed "Operation Absolute Resolve" saw elite troops breach the Venezuelan president's fortified compound.
www.bbc.com
"The troops took fire when they arrived, and one of the US helicopters was hit but was still able to fly. "The apprehension force descended into Maduro's compound and moved with speed, precision and discipline," Gen Caine said.
"They just broke in, and they broke into places that were not really able to be broken into, you know, steel doors that were put there for just this reason," Trump remarked.
It was only as the operation - which also saw Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores, seized - was unfolding that Rubio began notifying lawmakers about the action, a decision which has since prompted anger from some in the US Congress.
"Let me be clear: Nicolas Maduro is an illegitimate dictator. But launching military action without congressional authorisation and without a credible plan for what comes next is reckless," said top Democrat Chuck Schumer, the party's leader in the Senate.
Briefing Congress ahead of time would have endangered the mission, Rubio told reporters during the news conference on Saturday. "Congress has a tendency to leak," Trump added. "This would not be good."
.......
""He was trying to get to a safe place, which wasn't safe, because we would have had the door blown up in about 47 seconds," Trump said.
"He made it to the door. He was unable to close it. He got bum rushed so fast that he didn't get into that [room]."
When asked if the US could have killed Maduro, an authoritarian leader who took over the presidency in 2013, if he had resisted arrest, Trump said: "It could have happened."
On the US side, "a couple of guys were hit", he said, but no US service members were killed.
In a statement on Sunday, Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino said a "large part" of Maduro's security team and "soldiers and innocent civilians" were killed in the US operation.
The US had previously offered a $50m (£37m) reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest. But by 04:20 local time on Saturday, helicopters were leaving Venezuelan territory with Maduro and his wife on board, in custody of the US Department of Justice and en route ultimately to New York, where they are expected to face criminal charges.
Almost exactly an hour later Trump announced the news of his capture to the world. "Maduro and his wife will soon face the full might of American justice," he said."
