U.S. Has 'Begun The Process' Of Withdrawing From Syria, Pentagon Says

Rogue Valley said:

Today a senior administration official doubled the 200 troop level for Syria that Sarah Sanders yesterday to Fox to 400 troops indefinitely.

I assume the 400 refers to "boots on the ground" rather than the total US Syria package.

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2/22/19
President Donald Trump just reversed one of the biggest decisions of his presidency. As recently as December, he had vowed to bring all 2,000 American troops home from Syria — he even tweeted a video of himself announcing the move. But months of backlash from lawmakers in both parties, military leadership, and European allies — plus the potential endangerment of a US-backed force in Syria — apparently led Trump to change his mind. On Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced that the US would keep 200 troops in the country. Expanding on that during an appearance Friday on Fox & Friends, she said, “At the end of the day the president wants to bring our troops home and he is working towards that and he wants to do that in a safe and peaceful way, in the best way possible, to make sure we have complete safety for our troops abroad.”

But apparently that’s wrong. On Friday, it appeared that 400 troops — not 200 would stay in Syria after all. But Trump’s decision underscored two major flaws in his withdrawal plan. First, he said US troops could leave Syria because ISIS is defeated. He is somewhat right in that the terrorist group is mere days from losing all of its territory in Syria (and Iraq). The problem, though, is that both the Pentagon and the US intelligence community say ISIS still has thousands of fighters left in the area. If American troops were to withdraw now, then, there’s a good chance ISIS could recoup its major losses. Second, America’s departure could prove deeply problematic for US allies in Syria. That’s because of Turkey, the NATO ally that is trying to eradicate the US-backed Kurdish fighters there. Ankara considers the Kurds near its border a serious terrorist threat, and plans to remove them by launching an all-out military assault. If US troops go, that makes a Turkish attack more likely. It’s unclear what, exactly, the US troops will do, although it’s expected that some will stay in northern Syria to keep Turkey at bay and some in the south to spy on Iran’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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