U.S. could provide several thousand trainers at $500 million a year to train Syrian rebels (AP)

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SYRIA_MILITARY_TRAINING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-09-05-19-10-07

US officials: US considers training Syria rebels
By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is considering a plan to use U.S. military trainers to help increase the capabilities of the Syrian rebels, in a move that would greatly expand the current CIA training being done quietly in Jordan, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday...

(Gen. Martin Dempsey) provided more details in a July letter to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services, in which he laid out military options in response to the chemical weapons attack. That letter was sent before Obama announced plans to go to Congress to seek authorization for military strikes in Syria that would be limited in time and scope and would involve no U.S. troops on the ground there.

He said the U.S. could provide between several hundred and several thousand trainers, with a cost of as much as $500 million a year, depending on how large the training mission became. Noting that it would require using "safe areas" outside Syria, he said the risks included "extremists gaining access to additional capabilities, retaliatory cross-border attacks, and insider attacks or inadvertent association with war crimes due to vetting difficulties."

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1. another effing waste of money. we can cut SS to pay for it right? nt