Trump defends troop pullout on Iraq visit
In an unannounced trip to Iraq yesterday, 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 Islamic State militants 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 IS-controlled territory in both Iraq and Syria that he decided to withdraw 2000 forces from Syria. He said the decision to leave Syria showed America’s renewed stature on the world stage and his quest to put ‘‘America first.’’ ‘‘We’re no longer the suckers, folks,’’ Trump told US servicemen and women at al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq, about 160 kilometres west of Baghdad. ‘‘We’re respected again as a nation.’’
The decision to pull US forces from Syria, however, stunned national security advisers and US allies and prompted the resignations of Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, who was not on the trip, and the US envoy to the coalition fighting the Islamic extremist group. The militant group, also known as Isis, has lost nearly all its territory in Iraq and Syria but is still seen as a threat.
Iraq declared IS defeated within its borders in December 2017, but Trump’s trip was shrouded in secrecy, which has been standard practice for presidents flying into conflict areas.
Air Force One, lights out and window shutters drawn, flew overnight from Washington, landing at an airbase west of Baghdad in darkness. George W. Bush made four trips to Iraq as president and President Barack Obama made one.
During his three-plus hours on the ground, Trump did not meet with any Iraqi officials, but spoke on the phone with Iraqi Prime Minister Adil AbdulMahdi. Trump’s visit appeared to have inflamed sensitivities about the continued presence of US forces in Iraq. The two major blocs in the Iraqi parliament both condemned the visit, likening it to a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
The airbase where Trump spoke is about 250km from Hajin, a Syrian town near the Iraqi border where Kurdish fighters are still battling IS extremists.
Trump has said IS militants have been eradicated, but the latest estimate is that IS still holds about 100 square km of territory in that region of Syria, although fighters also fled the area and are in hiding in other pockets of the country.
Mattis was supposed to continue leading the Pentagon until late February but Trump moved up his exit and announced that Patrick Shanahan, deputy defence secretary, would take the job on January 1 and he was in ‘‘no rush’’ to nominate a new defence chief.
‘‘Everybody and his uncle wants that position,’’ Trump told reporters travelling with him in Iraq. ‘‘And also, by the way, everybody and her aunt, just so I won’t be criticised.’’
Critics said the US exit from Syria, the latest in Trump’s increasingly isolationist-style foreign policy, would provide an opening for IS to regroup, give Iran a green light to expand its influence in the region and leave USbacked Kurdish forces vulnerable to attacks from Turkey.
‘‘I made it clear from the beginning that our mission in Syria was to strip Isis of its military strongholds,’’ said Trump.