Senior U.S. envoy in Syria highly critical of troop withdrawal

WASHINGTON » A senior American diplomat has written a highly critical assessment of the Trump administration’s abrupt withdrawal of troops from northeast Syria last month, a decision that paved the way for an attack on U.S. allied forces in the area, officials said Thursday.

In an internal memo, William Roebuck, the top American diplomat in northern Syria, takes the Trump administration to task for not doing more to prevent Turkey’s invasion or protect the Kurds, who fought alongside U.S. forces in the battle against the Islamic State group, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

One of the officials described the memo, which was obtained and first revealed by The New York Times, as “lengthy and harsh.” The officials were not authorized to discuss internal documents publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Roebuck’s memo highlights how Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops was deeply divisive, even within his own administration. The move was widely criticized by Democrats and Republicans as abandoning a key ally in the fight against the Islamic State.

Turkey invaded days after President Donald Trump ordered the small number of U.S. special forces in the area to leave.

In the memo quoted by the Times, Roebuck said there was no way to know if more pressure on Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would have stopped the operation.

“It’s a tough call, and the answer is probably not.

But we won’t know because we didn’t try,” the Times quoted Roebuck as writing.

He also raised concerns about the possibility that Turkish-backed militias taking part in the operation were undisciplined and could commit atrocities amounting to war crimes.

Roebuck, a top deputy to the U.S. special envoy for Syria, James Jeffrey, said the withdrawal of U.S forces had badly, if not irreparably, damaged the trust of the Kurds. The memo was sent to Jeffrey and a number of other officials who deal with Syria policy.

Jeffrey is in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, for discussions with the Turks on putting in place an Oct. 17 deal negotiated by Vice President Mike Pence that created a buffer zone along portions of the Turkey-Syria border. On Wednesday, a senior U.S. official said Jeffrey was raising concerns about alleged war crimes.

Trump’s ordered withdrawal from the northeast has been somewhat tempered by the deployment of forces to protect oil fields in Kurdish-held areas, some of which are vulnerable to attacks by IS, Roebuck wrote in the memo. But he also said those deployments would play into long-held beliefs in the Mideast that the U.S. is only interested in the region for its oil.

LEFTERIS PITARAKIS — AP FILE In this Oct. 22 photo taken from the Turkish side of the border between Turkey and Syria, in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey, Syria’s opposition flag flies on a pole in Tal Abyad, Syria. Turkey’s Defense Ministry says a car bomb went off in Tal Abyad, killing several civilians. The ministry says others were wounded when the bomb exploded Saturday, Nov. 2 in central Tal Abyad, which was captured last month by Turkey-backed opposition gunmen from Kurdish-led fighters.

MEHMET GUZEL — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS In this photo taken from the outskirts of the village of Mert Ismail near the town of Suruc, southeastern Turkey, Turkish army vehicles return to Tirley from Syrian after conducting a joint patrol with Russian forces, Tuesday. Turkey and Russia launched joint patrols for the second time in northeastern Syria, under a deal that halted a Turkish offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters who were forced to withdraw from the border area following Ankara’s incursion.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Turkish and Russian patrol is seen near the town of Darbasiyah, Syria, Friday. Turkey and Russia launched joint patrols Friday in northeastern Syria, under a deal that halted a Turkish offensive against Syrian Kurdish fighters who were forced to withdraw from the border area following Ankara’s incursion.

BADERKHAN AHMAD— THE ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. forces patrol Syrian oil fields. Pentagon is increasing U.S. efforts to protect Syria’s oil fields from the extremist group as well as from Syria itself and the country’s Russian allies.