The pullout of U.S from Syria is very scary.The decision should be revisited.
Trump call with Turkish leader led to US pullout from Syria
WASHINGTON
(AP) — President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw American troops
from Syria was made hastily, without consulting his national security
team or allies, and over strong objections from virtually everyone
involved in the fight against the Islamic State group, according to U.S.
and Turkish officials.
Trump
stunned his Cabinet, lawmakers and much of the world with the move by
rejecting the advice of his top aides and agreeing to a withdrawal in a
phone call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, two
U.S. officials and a Turkish official briefed on the matter told The
Associated Press.
The
Dec. 14 call, described by officials who were not authorized to discuss
the decision-making process publicly and spoke on condition of
anonymity, provides insight into a consequential Trump decision that
prompted the resignation of widely respected Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis. It also set off a frantic, four-day scramble to convince the
president either to reverse or delay the decision.
The White House rejected the description of the call from the officials but was not specific.
"In
no uncertain terms, reporting throughout this story is not true,"
National Security Council spokesman Garrett Marquis said. "It is clear
from the context that this false version of events is from sources who
lack authority on the subject, possibly from unnamed sources in Turkey."
The
State Department and Pentagon declined to comment on the account of the
decision to withdraw the troops, which have been in Syria to fight the
Islamic State since 2015.
Despite
losing the physical caliphate, thousands of IS fighters remain in Iraq
and Syria, and the group continues to carry out insurgent attacks and
could easily move back into territory it once held if American forces
withdraw.
The
Dec. 14 call came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his
Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu agreed to have the two presidents
discuss Erdogan's threats to launch a military operation against
U.S.-backed Kurdish rebels in northeast Syria, where American forces are
based. The NSC then set up the call.
Pompeo,
Mattis and other members of the national security team prepared a list
of talking points for Trump to tell Erdogan to back off, the officials
said.
But
the officials said Trump, who had previously accepted such advice and
convinced the Turkish leader not to attack the Kurds and put U.S. troops
at risk, ignored the script. Instead, the president sided with Erdogan.
In
the following days, Trump remained unmoved by those scrambling to
convince him to reverse or at least delay the decision to give the
military and Kurdish forces time to prepare for an orderly withdrawal.
"The
talking points were very firm," said one of the officials, explaining
that Trump was advised to clearly oppose a Turkish incursion into
northern Syria and suggest the U.S. and Turkey work together to address
security concerns. "Everybody said push back and try to offer (Turkey)
something that's a small win, possibly holding territory on the border,
something like that."
Erdogan,
though, quickly put Trump on the defensive, reminding him that he had
repeatedly said the only reason for U.S. troops to be in Syria was to
defeat the Islamic State and that the group had been 99 percent
defeated. "Why are you still there?" the second official said Erdogan
asked Trump, telling him that the Turks could deal with the remaining IS
militants.
With
Erdogan on the line, Trump asked national security adviser John Bolton,
who was listening in, why American troops remained in Syria if what the
Turkish president was saying was true, according to the officials.
Erdogan's point, Bolton was forced to admit, had been backed up by
Mattis, Pompeo, U.S. special envoy for Syria Jim Jeffrey and special
envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition Brett McGurk, who have said that IS
retains only 1 percent of its territory, the officials said.
Bolton
stressed, however, that the entire national security team agreed that
victory over IS had to be enduring, which means more than taking away
its territory.
Trump
was not dissuaded, according to the officials, who said the president
quickly capitulated by pledging to withdraw, shocking both Bolton and
Erdogan.
Caught
off guard, Erdogan cautioned Trump against a hasty withdrawal,
according to one official. While Turkey has made incursions into Syria
in the past, it does not have the necessary forces mobilized on the
border to move in and hold the large swaths of northeastern Syria where
U.S. troops are positioned, the official said.
The
call ended with Trump repeating to Erdogan that the U.S. would pull
out, but offering no specifics on how it would be done, the officials
said.
Over
the weekend, the national security team raced to come up with a plan
that would reverse, delay or somehow limit effects of the withdrawal,
the officials said.
On
Monday, Bolton, Mattis and Pompeo met at the White House to try to plot
a middle course. But they were told by outgoing chief of staff John
Kelly and his soon-to-be successor Mick Mulvaney that Trump was
determined to pull out and was not to be delayed or denied, according to
the officials. The trio met again on Tuesday morning to try to salvage
things, but were again rebuffed, the officials said.
The
White House had wanted to announce the decision on Tuesday — and press
secretary Sarah Sanders scheduled a rare briefing specifically to
announce it. But the Pentagon convinced Trump to hold off because the
withdrawal plans weren't complete and allies and Congress had not yet
been notified, according to the officials. The first country aside from
Turkey to be told of the impending pull-out was Israel, the officials
said.
Word
of the imminent withdrawal began to seep out early Wednesday after U.S.
Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel started to inform his
commanders on the ground and the Kurds of the decision.
Following
the official announcement the White House emphasized that the U.S. will
continue to support the fight against IS and remains ready to
"re-engage" when needed. But in a tweet, the president said U.S. troops
would no longer be fighting IS on behalf of others.
"Time to focus on our Country & bring our youth back home where they belong!"
____
Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.
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