Our troops that left Syria and were going to stay in Iraq…well apparently that’s not going to work out:
DC EXAMINER – United States troops exiting Syria through Iraq will eventually make their way home, according to the Pentagon.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper provided the update on Tuesday after a statement from the Iraqi military that said U.S. troops do not have permission to stay in the country. Esper initially said the troops would relocate to western Iraq in order to continue operations against the Islamic State.
“We’ll reposition as they come out of northeast Syria into Iraq. You know, eventually, their destination is home. But what we’ve got to do is pull them out deliberately, out of northeast Syria, and make our preparations to go home from there; and I’ll have that discussion tomorrow with the Iraqi defense minister about the details,” Esper told reporters while visiting officials in Saudi Arabia.
“But the aim isn’t to stay in Iraq interminably; the aim is to pull our soldiers out and eventually get them back home.”
Esper did not offer an exact timetable as to when the troops would exit Iraq but expects the withdrawal would likely take weeks, not days. He added that plans are still in the “early stages.”
Bolton was a big advocate of maintaining a presence in that part of the world because it would allow us to respond better to threats to US interests and that of our allies.
But now we pull out of Northern Syria. We’re getting kicked out of Iraq. If Trump keeps pulling our us out, before you know it the only place we’ll have troops is in South Korea.
So I guess this means we’ll need more aircraft carriers?