(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said on Monday that President Nicolas Maduro is ready to declare a state of emergency in case of a US military attack, comments that come amid reports that say the US is considering bombing targets inside Venezuela.
Rodriguez said that Maduro has signed a decree that would allow him to mobilize the military throughout the country and put it in charge of public services and the oil industry in the event of an attack. Maduro has also mobilized a militia amid the military pressure from the US.
The Trump administration has deployed warships to the Caribbean and bombed at least three boats over claims that they were running drugs. At least 17 people have been extrajudicially executed in the US attacks, according to numbers released by President Trump.
US officials have told The New York Times that while combating drug trafficking was the pretext for the recent military action in the Caribbean, the ultimate goal is regime change in Venezuela. The policy is being driven by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Rodriguez called a “lord of war.”
Rodriguez called the US claims about drug trafficking a “big lie” and said the US really sought to seize Venezuela’s natural resources, which include the largest oil reserves in the world.
“It has only one purpose and objective: the reserves of oil, gas, gold, minerals [and] the biological wealth that Venezuela has – and which they need for this new era in which the US government declares war on the entire planet,” she said.
NBC News reported over the weekend that US military officials were drawing up plans to bomb alleged drug traffickers inside Venezuela and that strikes could begin within a matter of weeks.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
