USA: Training of Saudi soldiers to resume 'in the coming days' – Pentagon spox.

*BUG AT SOURCE*
W/S Chief spokesman for Defense Department Jonathan Hoffman arrives for briefing, Washington DC
SOT, Jonathan Hoffman, Chief spokesman for the Defense Department: "We believe that the international military student trainee program is incredibly valuable. We have seen over a million students from more than a 150 countries over the last 20 years go through this program. And so we see that this adds value. Whether it's learning English skills [or] improving the capabilities of their military, so that when we are called to fight together that they have capacity that they can assist us, but also in terms of building relationships between them and us so that they understand our culture that they have relationships with our leadership, so that as they progress in their own military we have those friendships we can call on."
Journalist: "And the training?"
Jonathan Hoffman, Chief spokesman for the Defense Department: "So with regards to training, as we said it before, the classroom training still continued. The question I think of yours is specific to whether the operational training is resumed. That's an announcement we will likely have as to when that is in the coming days. I will just point out the over the holidays, much of the training was in recess but entering the holidays, the training schedules is a bit different so we are looking forward to turning that back on in the coming days but we should have an announcement for it pretty soon."
M/S Journalist asks question during briefing *CUTAWAY*
SOT, Jonathan Hoffman, Chief spokesman for Defense Department: "Obviously our number one concern is going to be the safety and security of our personnel, the other students in the trainee program as well as our base family members and the communities. The tragedy in Pensacola led us to address the vetting. Previously vetting had been handled by the home country of the students as well as DHS and State Department. So we have taken an enhanced look at that, at how we can use our resources and the information we have to do an enhanced vetting and looked through that is what we started to conduct."
W/S Journalist asks question during briefing *CUTAWAY*
SOT, Jonathan Hoffman, Chief spokesman for Defense Department: "We are still in conversations with our Iraqi host. We continue to want to be a friend and partner to the sovereign and prosperous Iraq. At this time there are no plans by the US military to withdraw from Iraq. And I think its been obvious and the secretary [of defence] has touched on this a good bit that the consensus in Iraq seems to be that the United States' forces they are a force for good, having United States' forces in Iraq allows NATO to be present as well, to help with that counter-ISIS mission as well as the training mission to support Iraqi security forces. "
M/S Journalist asks question during briefing *CUTAWAY*
SOT, Jonathan Hoffman, chief spokesman for the Defense Department: "We firmly believe that our relationship with Iraqis and Iraqi people is beneficial to Iraq. We think that things are trending in a productive manner and that we are going to continue with this partnership that we have and we will continue to lead to increasing security and prosperity for the Iraqi people."
W/S Hoffman leaving briefing
SCRIPT
The military training of more than 800 Saudi soldiers halted after a Saudi trainee killed three sailors at a Florida military base will most probably resume "in the coming days" according to Chief spokesman for the Defense Department Jonathan Hoffman speaking at a briefing in Washington D.C. on Thursday.
"We are looking forward to turning that back on in the coming days," announced Hoffman speaking of field and operational training of the students.
A Saudi trainee opened fire and killed three sailors at Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida last December.