So much for declaring victory and going home
by digby
Remember this?
After historic victories against ISIS, it’s time to bring our great young people home! pic.twitter.com/xoNjFzQFTp— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 19, 2018
Citing U.S. officials, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the Trump administration plans to continue supporting Kurdish fighters in Syria.
The officials reportedly added that the plan could keep as many as 1,000 forces across the country, but said the specific number of troops that will remain is still being determined.
The U.S. will start withdrawing hundreds of troops after it defeats the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), according to the Journal.
Trump has repeatedly claimed since December that ISIS has been fully defeated in the region.
“You kept hearing it was 90 percent, 92 percent, the caliphate in Syria. Now it’s 100 percent, we just took over,” Trump said during remarks to troops last month. “Now it’s 100 percent, we just took over 100 percent caliphate. That means the area of the land. We just have 100 percent.”
Lawmakers in Congress and U.S. officials, however, have maintained that ISIS hasn’t been completely defeated.
Gen. Joseph Votel, the top military commander in charge of the fight against the Islamic State, told CNN last month that ISIS “still has leaders, still has fighters, it still has facilitators, it still has resources.”
The move to keep troops in the country comes after Trump in December said he would immediately remove all of the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops in the country, an announcement that prompted the resignation of then-Defense Secretary James Mattis.
The Trump administration then said last month that it was planning to leave about 400 U.S. troops in Syria.
This is out of 2,000 advisers that were there when he made his big announcement. The way it’s going he’ll end up sending troops to Syria.
I don’t know what this was all about but it’s likely that Trump just got a bee in his bonnet after talking to someone on the phone and decided to announce the pullout. And, of course, it was done without planning or foresight so it is a big mess.
.