U.S. will deploy 1,500 troops to Mideast
White House also plans to sell arms to Saudi Arabia, others
WASHINGTON — The U.S. will deploy about 1,500 troops to the Middle East, President Donald Trump said Friday, in his administration’s latest step to address what it says are increased threats from Iran.
“We’re going to be sending a relatively small number of troops, mostly protective, and some very talented people are going to the Middle East right now, and we’ll see what happens,” he said outside the White House. “It’ll be about 1,500 people.”
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said he had approved a request by U.S. Central Command, which oversees military activities in the Middle East, to deploy a Patriot missile battalion, intelligence and surveillance aircraft, a squadron of fighter planes and engineering capabilities. He said the deployments would help safeguard U.S. forces, given an ongoing threat posed by Iran and its proxies.
“The additional deployment to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility is a prudent defensive measure and intended to reduce the possibility of future hostilities,” Shanahan said in a statement.
Growing confrontation
The decision was made after a meeting late Thursday at the White House between Trump and top Pentagon leaders. While the deployment represents a modest increase to the large U.S. military footprint in the Middle East, it marks the latest manifestation of a growing confrontation between Washington and Tehran that lawmakers worry could result in a miscalculation or open conflict.
The infusion of forces also came as the State Department notified Congress that Trump would be invoking emergency powers to sidestep the congressional approval process and sell arms to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other nations.
Pentagon officials have been emphasizing that they are taking steps to deter Iran. In recent days, Shanahan has said any new troop deployments would serve to ensure the protection of U.S. forces and avoid the risk of Iranian miscalculation that could lead to a broader conflict.
“Our job is deterrence. This is not about war,” he said Thursday. “We have a mission there in the Middle East: freedom of navigation, counterterrorism in Syria and Iraq, defeating al-Qaida in Yemen, and the security of Israel and Jordan.”
The type of forces the Pentagon is deploying does not indicate any impending ground offensive by the U.S. Patriot missiles are designed to track and shoot down incoming missiles.
Kathryn Wheelbarger, acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, said none of the additional forces would be going to Iraq or Syria but rather to other U.S. positions in the Middle East, which she declined to disclose.
“This is intended to be responsive to their aggressive behavior and planning and to defend our forces in the region,” Wheelbarger said. “We are seeking to avoid hostilities. We are not seeking war with Iran.”
The decision comes as the Trump administration is stepping up pressure on Iran after pulling out of the 2015 nuclear accord negotiated by President Barack Obama. Since then, the administration has increased sanctions, designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization and declined to renew waivers that allowed eight countries to buy Iranian oil.
In recent weeks, U.S. officials have cited new indications of possible Iranian attacks on U.S. interests as a reason to send the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group, four B-52 bombers and Patriot missile defense forces to the region. The State Department ordered the evacuation of all nonemergency personnel from Iraq, where Iranian proxy forces operate.
U.S. officials say they believe that Iran was behind sabotage attacks on four oil tankers off the coast of the UAE this month. Iran has denied involvement in the incidents, which damaged the ships. Two of the ships were Saudi Arabian, one was from the UAE and the fourth was Norwegian.
Support, skepticism
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, defended the increased military posture announced Friday, saying it is “important that we make clear to Iran, in words and actions, that they cannot attack us with impunity.”
But Democrats have expressed skepticism about the urgency of the threats and voiced concern that the White House under the leadership of national security adviser John Bolton, who has advocated for regime change in Iran, could rush into a conflict.
Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the committee’s chairman, called the new deployment “unsettling.”
“Without a clearly articulated strategy, adding more personnel and mission systems seems unwise and appears to be a blatant and heavy-handed move to further escalate tensions with Iran,” he said in a statement.
The increased pressure by the U.S. has prompted a backlash from Iran, which announced this week that it has quadrupled the pace at which it enriches lowgrade uranium at one nuclear plant. It predicted that within weeks, it would exceed a stockpile cap set by the nuclear agreement.