Trump in Iraq: ‘We’re no longer suckers’
US forces could ‘re-enter Syria’ if needed
In an unannounced trip to Iraq, US President Donald Trump staunchly defended his decision to withdraw US forces from neighbouring Syria despite a drumbeat of criticism from military officials and allies who don’t think the job fighting Isis there is over.
Trump, making his first presidential visit to troops in a troubled region, said it’s because the US military had all but eliminated Isis-controlled territory in both Iraq and Syria that he decided to withdraw 2000 forces from Syria.
Trump also said he had no plans to withdraw the 5200 US forces in Iraq. “We can use this as a base if we wanted to do something in Syria. If we see something happening with Isis that we don’t like, we can hit them so fast and so hard” that they “really won’t know what the hell happened”.
Trump said the US should not be involved in nation-building, and that other wealthy nations should shoulder the cost of rebuilding Syria.
He said the decision to leave Syria showed America’s renewed stature on the world stage. He told US troops at al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq: “We’re no longer the suckers, folks. We’re respected again as a nation.”
The decision to pull US forces from Syria stunned national security advisers and US allies and prompted the resignation of Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, who was not on the trip. Isis has lost nearly all its territory in Iraq and Syria but is still seen as a threat. Critics said the US exit from Syria, the latest step in Trump’s isolationist style foreign policy, would provide an opening for Isis to regroup, give Iran a green light to expand its influence in the region and leave US-backed Kurdish forces vulnerable to attacks from Turkey.
During his three-plus hours on the ground, Trump did not meet any Iraqi officials, but spoke by phone to Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi.
Air Force One, lights out and window shutters drawn, flew from Washington, landing in darkness. Trump wore an olive green bomber style jacket as he was welcomed by chants of “USA! USA!” and speakers blaring Lee Greenwood’s song, God
Bless the USA. On his way back, Trump stopped at Ramstein Airbase in Germany for refuelling and to see service members there.
The trip was marked by clues suggesting Trump was headed overseas. Much of the speculation was stirred by eagle-eyed social media users. A Twitter user in Germany posted that he had tracked an aircraft that could be Air Force One. A Britainbased Flickr user posted a photo of a plane bearing the same colour scheme as the presidential aircraft flying over Yorkshire. The messages prompted others to track the flight’s call sign and muse that Trump could be travelling to the Middle East.
George W. Bush made four trips to Iraq as president and President Barack Obama made one. Obama travelled aboard Air Force One when he visited US troops in Iraq in 2009 and Afghanistan in 2012 and 2014.
On a 2003 visit to Iraq, Bush travel-
led on Air Force One, passing within sight of a British Airways pilot who reportedly radioed a London control tower to ask, “Did I just see Air Force One?” In the pre-social media era, the secret went no further. The tower misidentified it as a Gulfstream 5, to which the pilot replied, “Oh”.
There were other hints that Trump had left Washington. The White House press office was unstaffed and did not issue daily guidance for his schedule. The Marine who usually stands guard outside the West Wing when the President is in the White House was nowhere to be seen. Most telling was Trump’s uncharacteristic absence from social media: The President, who tweeted more than a dozen times each on Monday and Tuesday and twice on Wednesday, had not tweeted in 20 hours by the time his arrival was made public.
“Sources telling me Trump’s on his way to visit troops — possibly in Iraq,” Paul Rieckhoff, founder and chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, tweeted. “Better late than never. But also a bit troubling that so many folks seem to already know about this... #OpSec anyone?” Others noted that, given the rise of social media, the White House might want to opt for a more difficultto-identify aircraft in the future.