From WWW.FOXNEWS.COM
EXCLUSIVE: Former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus said while a prisoner swap is not “unreasonable” in order to bring Americans back home, it is not ideal for the United States to “reward” Russia by returning a dangerous Russian arms dealer with the “blood of many people on his hands.”
President Biden announced Thursday that WNBA star Brittney Griner had been released from Russian custody roughly 10 months after being arrested for bringing vape cartridges containing hashish oil through a Moscow airport. She was turned over in exchange for the release of convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was once nicknamed “the Merchant of Death.”
During an interview with Fox News Digital at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington, D. C., Petraeus said it is an “understandable imperative” for countries to engage in prisoner swaps in order to safely deliver their citizens home. However, he also recognized that Bout’s bloody history complicates the matter, calling him a “very reprehensible individual.”
“I don’t think that this is at all unreasonable. You know, every country wants to get back its citizens. Ukraine and Russia are doing this again,” explained Petraeus.
“You hate, in a sense, to reward what Russia does, in certain cases, if you’re talking about the case of the female professional basketball player. One hates to reward Russia for doing something like that.”
“But on the other hand, I think it’s an understandable imperative to get our citizens home, and sometimes that requires us to take actions that, you know, we’d rather not take, because, again, the individual ready to go back is a very, very reprehensible individual with the blood of many people on his hands,” the general continued…. (Read more)