Petri and Rossi’s tense exchange over defence management

Based on the repercussions of the meeting between President Javier Milei and U.S. General Laura Richardson, the current Minister of Defense, Luis Petri, crossed on social networks the previous official in charge, Agustín Rossi, in a forceful criticism of his management. Milei’s meeting with Richardson aroused different repercussions, including former President Alberto Fernández, who used his Twitter account to describe the image in which both appear as a gesture of “Argentine submission to a foreign nation.” In the same vein, Patricia Bullrich, Minister of National Security, said that Fernández “was never president” and sentenced: “Nor should he have known that for 4 years he was the commander in chief of the Armed Forces.” Quoting the minister’s message, Agustín Rossi – former Minister of Defense in Fernández’s government – responded by stating that during his administration “the salary of military personnel was laundered, generating a significant improvement in the retirement credit” and remarked that “the FONDEF was also implemented, the first fund that the Armed Forces have for their equipment.” From his position as current defense minister, Petri strongly criticized Rossi’s management and also questioned the former president. “It was a shameful management in Defense, they mistreated and humiliated the Armed Forces, they used the FONDEF to place gnocchi in defense companies and used their resources to cover their deficits. Where are the wheeled armored vehicles? Where is the polar vessel? Nothing, smoke like in Fernandez’s failed administration as president,” he said. In the exchange, Rossi quickly replied in the same way and mentioned a failure of the current minister. “Humiliating military personnel is not paying them the 2 tranches of the hierarchy that corresponded to your management. With FONDEF, among others, we paid for the ocean patrol boats bought by Macri, modernize the TAM 2Cs, we bought the Saab planes,” he said. However, Petri doubled down and cited statements by the current president to conclude his criticism. “They humiliated them, persecuted them and gave them two installments with the ‘Plan Platita’ by hitting the Central machine. But there was money to use Tandanor as a Kirchnerist powerhouse to make monuments to Kirchner, square furniture and bicycle racks. Was that increasing the capabilities of the Forces? As the President said, we come to vindicate the Forces, to put them at the service of the Homeland, to equip them and to give them all the support they deserve,” he concluded. On the other hand, the Minister of Defense responded to Alberto Fernández’s tweet about Milei’s image next to Richardson. “The former Argentine president who had a clandestine party in the middle of the pandemic. That offered Putin our homeland to be the gateway to the region. That he invited Maduro to Argentina and defended the autocracies of the region in all international organizations. The same one that laughed in the face of the 47 million Argentines for four years. Have decency and respect. Call for silence and continue to rest in Spain, from where you will no longer be able to continue ruining the country,” Petri wrote.

Original source in Spanish