Defense Board: White House Blocked Navy From S. China Sea Warship Passages

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Free Beacon:

Senior White House officials blocked the Navy from conducting needed freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea amid growing concerns that China is militarizing newly reclaimed islands, according to the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board.

 

A working paper produced in September 2015 by John Hamre, the policy board chairman, called for an immediate resumption of Navy warship passages to prevent China from taking over the strategic Southeast Asian waterway.

 

The internal document was disclosed Monday by WikiLeaks as part of its latest batch of hacked emails from the account of John Podesta, campaign chairman for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. The Obama administration has accused “Russia’s senior-most officials” of hacking and leaking the emails posted to WikiLeaks and other sites in order to influence the 2016 election.