Pentagon chief Mattis quits, citing Trump policies.
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, whose experience and stability were widely seen as a balance to an unpredictable president, resigned Thursday in protest of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria and his rejection of international alliances.
Mattis had repeatedly told friends and aides over recent months that he viewed his responsibility to protect the United States’ 1.3 million active-duty troops as worth the concessions necessary as defense secretary to a mercurial president. But Thursday, in an extraordinary rebuke of the president, he finally decided that Trump’s decision to withdraw roughly 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria was a step too far.
Officials said Mattis went to the White House on Thursday afternoon with his resignation letter already written but nonetheless made a last attempt at persuading Trump to reverse his decision about Syria, which the president announced Wednesday over the objections of his senior advisers.
Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general, was rebuffed. Returning to the Pentagon, he asked aides to print out 50 copies of his resignation letter and distribute them around the building.
“My views on treating allies with respect and also being cleareyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held,” Mattis wrote. “Because you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”
His resignation came as Congress appeared to be hurtling toward a government shutdown and a deep market slump became even worse over fears of continuing government turmoil.
Trump said Mattis will leave at the end of February and promised to name a replacement shortly. He said Mattis “was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations.”
The resignation came as the Pentagon prepared to draw down forces in another global conflict. Two Defense Department officials said about 7,000 troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan in coming months, cutting in half the number of U.S. forces there, in an early step to ending the United States’ involvement in the 17-year war.
“This is scary,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a Twitter post. He called Mattis “an island of stability amidst the chaos of the Trump administration.”
“As we’ve seen with the President’s haphazard approach to Syria, our national defense is too important to be subjected to the President’s erratic whims,” Warner wrote.