It was "too easy" for a veteran serviceman to buy an airline ticket to the Middle East and join rebel troops in Syria fighting the Islamic State (ISIS), former CIA analyst Fred Fleitz told
Newsmax TV's "America's Newsroom."
Fox News reported on Friday that a U.S. military veteran, identified only as "John," said it was easy for him to buy a ticket to Syria, describing it as being as simple as "booking a flight to Miami Beach."
"It was entirely too easy for someone who had no real credentials with the Syrian rebels to enter the country and fight with them," Fleitz said Friday.
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Fleitz said he was also concerned by "John's" claims that the Kurdish rebel fighters he fought alongside in Syria were poorly equipped and trained.
The administration of President Barack Obama has voiced support for the Kurdish fighters in the battle against ISIS, but has fallen short of supplying weapons because of fears they would lead to more instability in Iraq, reported
Kurdish media network Rudaw.
"Just as important is what this guy says about how incompetent and how poorly trained and how poorly armed these troops are. And it raises real questions about the president's strategy to use the so-called moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS.
"The weapons they've been provided by other countries have been very limited, so, I mean, they're in a very bad situation, and our training program is not going to get them ready to fight ISIS for at least a year. And, of course, we have to find these moderate Syrian rebels, and I'm still not sure how that's going to happen," Fleitz said.
Regarding talks with Tehran over Iran's nuclear weapons program, Fleitz said he feared Obama had decided to "concede the nuclear bomb to Iran because he's so desperate for a deal."
He said the White House strategy could be to allow Iran to have a nuclear bomb "in hopes that we can somehow manage it."
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