President Donald Trump declared victory over ISIS in Syria on Wednesday, as the Pentagon prepares for an immediate troop withdrawal.
'We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,' the president wrote on Twitter.
The announcement came under immediate scrutiny, particularly when it was coupled with remarks that America's liaison to the coalition fighting ISIS made a week ago.
'Nobody is declaring a mission accomplished,' Brett McGurk had proclaimed. 'Defeating a physical caliphate is one phase of a much longer-term campaign.'
Allies of the president such as Sen. Lindsey Graham called it a 'huge Obama-like mistake,' while Rep. Adam Kinzinger said he would 'sure hope the President and his advisers are smarter than this.'
Sen. Marco Rubio also called it a 'great disservice' to the nation and a 'big mistake' that invites 'America's adversaries America is an unreliable partner.'
'Today’s decision will lead to grave consequences in the months and years to come,' the Republican senator cautioned.
President Donald Trump declared a victory in Syria in the U.S. campaign against ISIS as the military prepares for a total pullout
Trump declared victory in Syria over ISIS on Wednesday morning in a surprise announcement that the U.S. was pulling troops out of the region
Graham chided Trump on Capitol Hill to reporters for announcing the withdraw on Twitter.
'This is the role of the Congress. To make administrations explain their policy, not in a tweet, but before Congress answering questions,' he said.
Graham said he was 'annoyed,' according to CNN, and pledged 'aggressive' oversight of the move.
Trump's declaration came after the Wall Street Journal and other outlets quoted Pentagon officials saying the U.S. would soon begin pulling out remaining forces, which number about 2,000.
'The Pentagon has an order to get to move troops out of Syria as quickly as possible,' a U.S. official told the paper.
The White House said in a statement following Trump's announcement that troops have 'started returning' home and a transition has begun.
'Five years ago, ISIS was a very powerful and dangerous force in the Middle East, and now the United States has defeated the territorial caliphate. These victories over ISIS in Syria do not signal the end of the Global Coalition or its campaign,' White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement. 'We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign.'
She added, 'The United States and our allies stand ready to re-engage at all levels to defend American interests whenever necessary, and we will continue to work together to deny radical Islamist terrorists territory, funding, support, and any means of infiltrating our borders.'
The move is likely to please Turkish president Recep Erdogan, who wants to counter U.S. allied Kurdish forces in Syria and who spoke with Trump by telephone last week. He has been threatening an assault on U.S. allied Kurdish forces, who have been effective in helping to combat ISIS.
But as the U.S. is preparing to pack up, Russia is moving in. After carrying out a fight in Syria billed as an anti-terror campaign but also buttressing Assad, Russia has begun building a permanent military presence, Reuters reported, quoting the Russian defense minister. The Russian parliament ratified a deal with Damascus on the permanent presence, the RIA news agency reported.
The deal would expand the Tartus naval facility, Russia's only naval foothold in the Mediterranean, and grant Russian warships access to Syrian waters and ports, Viktor Bondarev, head of the upper house security and defense committee, told RIA.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has pushed for a longer-term presence to make sure ISIS does not return to its former power, having been rolled back from its sprawling geographic base in Iraq and Syria.
Graham compared Trump to his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama's resolve to pull troops out of Iraq, which critics say paved the way for ISIS to develop.
'Withdrawal of this small American force in Syria would be a huge Obama-like mistake,' Graham tweeted.
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger disputed the president's claim that ISIS had been defeated
An Illinois Republican and a military veteran, Kinzinger disputed the president's claim that ISIS had been defeated.
'This is simply not true,' Kinzinger wrote, after retweeting the president.
He said in another message, addressing Trump's decision to pull out troops, 'Really? Iran is rejoicing right now. We left Iraq, and had to come back. I would sure hope the President and his advisers are smarter than this.'
Retired Gen. Mark Hertling turned in a devastating review in an appearance on CNN, saying the move appeared to be 'transactional' in nature, having to do with an arrangement with Turkey and Russia.
'This was very surprising to me—not only the announcement but the timing. I don't understand why it is happening now,' he told the network.
'The U.S. Forces have just started an offensive with the Syrian defense forces and the Kurds against the town of Hajin, which is considered an ISIS stronghold… You're talking about making both the Russians, the Syrian Bashar Al Assad, the Iranians and the Turks very happy about this move because the Kurdish forces are going to see this as us turning against them one more time.'
Hertling added: 'What is interesting that has not been brought up yet is there seems to be a transactional element to this, too,' Raw Story reported. 'Over the last days the U.S. Has sealed the deal with Turkey for $3.5 billion worth of Patriot missile systems that were signed yesterday by our State Department. I'm sure that played a role, a little bit, in this.'
The State Department subsequently cancelled its daily briefing with reporters.
Just last week the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, McGurk, said at a State Department briefing that ISIS had not been defeated.
'Even as the end of the physical caliphate is clearly now coming into sight, the end of ISIS will be a much more long-term initiative. We’ve talked about that many times. Nobody working on these issues day to day is complacent. Nobody is declaring a mission accomplished,' he'd said. 'Defeating a physical caliphate is one phase of a much longer-term campaign.'
He said that ISIS was down to one percent of controlled territory and said the coalition was shifting its focus to how to sustain the gains it had made in the region.
'We’re prepared to maintain the stabilization effort in Iraq and Syria,' he said.
This April 2, 2018 photo shows a general view of a US military base in the al-Asaliyah village, between the city of Aleppo and the northern town of Manbij. The United States is preparing to withdraw its troops from Syria, a major move that throws into question America's role in the region
Syrian Democratic Forces and U.S. troops are seen during a patrol near Turkish border in Hasakah, Syria November 4, 2018
The U.S. first became involved in Syria by providing covert aide to rebels who rose up against the government of Bashar al-Assad, who U.S. government officials soon identified as a brutal dictator who would ultimately use chemical weapons against Syrian opposition groups and people living in rebel-held areas.
Trump ordered a missile strike in 2017 intended to respond to a Syrian use of chemical weapons.
Russia built up its own forces in Syria to prop up the Assad regime, and during the Obama administration top diplomats had to negotiate protocols to avoid unplanned encounters between U.S. and Russian forces.
With a total U.S. pullout, Russian forces would remain as the dominant air power in Syria.
Erdogan has repeatedly balked at the U.S. military's decision to partner with Kurdish forces who have proved capable of fighting against ISIS, swayed by domestic concerns about Kurds living inside Turkey seeking more independence. Turkey is a key NATO ally.
A U.S. Air Force munitions team member uncases the laser-guided tip for a 500 pound bomb to be loaded onto an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), for airstrikes on ISIL targets on January 8, 2016 at a base in the Persian Gulf Region
U.S. troops patrol near Turkish border in Hasakah, Syria, November 4, 2018
Posted on Aug. 27, 2014, by the Raqqa Media Center of the Islamic State group, a Syrian opposition group, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, shows a fighter of the Islamic State group waving their flag from inside a captured government fighter jet following the battle for the Tabqa air base, in Raqqa
Complicating relations, the Trump administration has declined to move against Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, despite the murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul – a killing that infuriated the Turkish government.
Trump campaigned on pulling back the U.S. from its overseas commitments, but the U.S. continues to maintain a heavy troop presence in Afghanistan despite a drawdown and continued attacks by Taliban forces on government and U.S. targets.
In Syria, Trump said this spring he wanted to 'get out' and would recall troops as soon he was able.
'I want to bring our troops back home,' Trump said.
The timing of the troop withdrawal was not immediately clear and U.S. officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity did not disclose details about the deliberations. But one official told Reuters that partners and allies had been consulted.
Two U.S. officials said a decision to withdraw had already been reached but that could not be immediately confirmed. It was unclear how soon a decision detailing any withdrawal plans might be announced.
The Pentagon declined to comment, saying only that it continued to work with partners in the region.
The United States still has about 2,000 troops in Syria, many of them special operations forces working closely with an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
The partnership with the SDF over the past several years has led to the defeat of ISIS in Syria but outraged NATO ally Turkey, which views Kurdish YPG forces in the alliance as an extension of a militant group fighting inside Turkey.
The deliberations on U.S. troops come as Ankara threatens a new offensive in Syria. To date, U.S. forces in Syria have been seen as a stabilizing factor in the country and have somewhat restrained Turkey's actions against the SDF.
A complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria would still leave a sizeable U.S. military presence in the region, including about 5,200 troops across the border in Iraq.
Much of the U.S. campaign in Syria has been waged by warplanes flying out of Qatar and other locations in the Middle East.
Still, Mattis and U.S. State Department officials have long fretted about leaving Syria before a peace agreement can be reached to end that country's brutal civil war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced around half of Syria´s pre-war population of about 22 million.
In April, Mattis said: 'We do not want to simply pull out before the diplomats have won the peace. You win the fight - and then you win the peace.'
ISIS is also widely expected to revert to guerilla tactics once it no longer holds territory.
A U.S. withdrawal could open Trump up to criticism if ISIS reemerged.
Trump has previously lambasted his predecessor, Barack Obama, for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq that preceded an unraveling of the Iraqi armed forces. Iraqi forces collapsed in the face of ISIS advance into the country in 2014.
ISIS declared its so-called 'caliphate' in 2014 after seizing large swathes of Syria and Iraq. The hardline Islamist group established its de facto capital in the Syrian city of Raqqa, using it as a base to plot attacks in Europe.
According to U.S. estimates, the group oversaw about 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles) of territory, with about 8 million people under ISIS control. It had estimated revenues of nearly one billion dollars a year. The group has no remaining territory in Iraq.
Hajin, the group's last major stronghold in Syria, is close to being seized by U.S.-backed SDF forces.
After losing Hajin, ISIS will control a diminishing strip of territory along the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in the area where U.S.-backed operations are focused. The militants also control some desert terrain west of the river in territory otherwise controlled by the Damascus government and its allies.
But U.S. officials have warned that taking back the group's territory would not be the same as defeating it.
U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cautioned earlier in December that the United States had trained only about 20 percent of Syrian forces required to stabilize areas captured from ISIS.
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2018/12/19/trump-savaged-by-top-republicans-after-declaring-victory-over-isis-in-syria/
Main photo article President Donald Trump declared victory over ISIS in Syria on Wednesday, as the Pentagon prepares for an immediate troop withdrawal.
‘We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,’ the president wrote on Twitter.
The announcement came u...
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Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2018/12/19/14/7619254-6512333-image-a-28_1545231181755.jpg
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