NATION/WORLD
Saturday, January 12, 2019
East Oregonian
A9
U.S. starts withdrawing supplies,
but not troops, from Syria
By ROBERT BURNS
AP National Security Writer
WASHINGTON — The
U.S. military said Friday it
has started pulling equip-
ment, but not troops, out
of Syria as a first step in
meeting President Donald
Trump’s demand for a com-
plete military withdrawal.
The announcement fueled
concern about how quickly
the U.S. will abandon its
Kurdish allies, amid contra-
dictory statements recently
by administration officials on
an exit timetable.
The withdrawal began
with shipments of military
equipment, U.S. defense
officials said. But in com-
ing weeks, the contingent
of about 2,000 troops is
expected to depart even as
the White House vows to
keep pressure on the Islamic
State group. Once the troops
are gone, the U.S. will have
ended three years of orga-
nizing, arming, advising and
providing air cover for Syr-
ian, Kurdish and Arab fight-
ers in an open-ended cam-
paign devised by the Obama
administration to deal the IS
group a lasting defeat.
Uncertainty over the tim-
ing and terms of the Syria
pullout have raised questions
about the Trump administra-
tion’s broader strategy for
fighting Islamic extremism,
including Trump’s stated
intention to reduce U.S.
forces in Afghanistan this
summer.
U.S. airstrikes against IS
in Syria began in Septem-
ber 2014, and ground troops
moved in the following year
in small numbers.
The U.S. military has a
limited network of bases
inside Syria. Troops work
mostly out of small camps
in remote parts of the coun-
try’s northeast. Also, U.S.
troops are among 200 to 300
coalition troops at a garri-
son in southern Syria known
as al-Tanf, where they train
and accompany local Syrian
opposition forces on patrols
Governor: No
sign of security
crisis at border
with Mexico
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) —
New Mexico Gov. Michelle
Lujan Grisham said she saw
no immediate evidence Fri-
day at the U.S. border with
Mexico of the security crisis
described by President Don-
ald Trump, as she pressed
U.S. officials there for more
information about conditions
inside a short-term detention
facility for immigrants.
Lujan Grisham visited the
border community of Sun-
land Park and the Santa Teresa
port of entry on a fact-finding
mission before making fur-
ther decisions about the ongo-
ing deployment of New Mex-
ico National Guard troops to
reinforce border security.
She was briefed by the
National Guard and U.S. Cus-
toms and Border Protection,
but she asked for more exten-
sive information, according
to governor’s office spokes-
man Tripp Stelnicki.
“I wanted to see the sit-
uation for myself,” said
Lujan Grisham, relaying her
impressions through a series
of Twitter posts. “I still have
questions, and I’m going
to work through the data
I’ve requested, so the deci-
sions we make about the
issues at our border are evi-
dence-based, not political.”
The governor repeatedly
has expressed skepticism
about Trump’s portrayal of
immigration and border secu-
rity situations amid the stand-
off over federal funding for a
border wall.
That’s a sharp shift in out-
look from the preceding gov-
ernor of New Mexico, Repub-
lican Susana Martinez, who
deployed nearly 200 troops
to the border in April and this
week defended Trump’s call
for a border wall as part of a
deal to end the partial govern-
ment shutdown.
AP Photo/Marco Garcia, File
In this Nov. 6, 2018, file photo, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard,
D-Hawaii, greets supporters in Honolulu.
Democratic Hawaii
Rep. Gabbard running
for president in 2020
AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File
In this April 4, 2018, file photo, a U.S. soldier sits on an armored vehicle behind a sand barrier
at a newly installed position near the front line between the U.S-backed Syrian Manbij Military
Council and the Turkish-backed fighters in Manbij, north Syria.
to counter the IS group.
Al-Tanf is on a vital road
linking Iranian-backed forces
from Tehran all the way to
southern Lebanon — and
Israel’s doorstep.
Trump’s decision to leave
Syria, which he initially said
would be rapid but later
slowed down, shocked U.S.
allies and angered the Kurds
in Syria, who are vulnera-
ble to attack by Turkey. It
also prompted the resigna-
tion of Defense Secretary
Jim Mattis and drew criti-
cism in Congress. Sen. Jack
Reed, a Rhode Island Dem-
ocrat, called the decision
a “betrayal of our Kurdish
partners.”
The U.S. military com-
mand in Baghdad, which
is managing the counter-IS
campaign in Iraq and Syria,
said Friday that it “has begun
the process of our deliber-
ate withdrawal from Syria,”
adding that, for security rea-
sons, it would not reveal
timetables, locations or troop
movements. Other U.S. offi-
cials later made clear that the
pullout did not yet include
troops.
The withdrawal plan,
whose details are classified,
includes bringing hundreds
of additional troops into
Syria temporarily to facilitate
the pullout. These include
troops to provide extra secu-
rity for those who are prepar-
ing to leave. The full with-
drawal is expected to take
several months.
The USS Kearsarge
amphibious assault ship is
now in the region and could
provide troops and equipment
to support the withdrawal.
U.S. troops are still work-
ing with a partner known
as the Syrian Democratic
Forces to stamp out the last
IS holdouts in the Middle
Euphrates River Valley near
the Iraqi border. Trump has
asserted that the IS group in
Syria is defeated, but others
have said a continued U.S.
military presence is neces-
sary to prevent a resurgence
of the group. Two weeks
before Trump announced he
was ordering a pullout, Gen.
Joseph Dunford, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said
the U.S. still had a long way
to go in training local Syrian
forces to stabilize areas rid-
den of the IS group. He said it
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would take 35,000 to 40,000
local forces in northeastern
Syria to maintain security,
but only about 20 percent had
been trained.
Another complication is
the fate of hundreds of for-
eign IS fighters being held
in Syria. The U.S. doesn’t
want these prisoners to be
released once U.S. forces are
gone, since they could rejoin
the militant cause in Syria or
elsewhere.
There has been confu-
sion over plans to implement
Trump’s pullout order amid
threats from Turkey to attack
the Kurdish fighters, who are
seen by Ankara as terrorists
because of their ties to insur-
gents within Turkey.
On a visit to Turkish troops
stationed near the Syrian bor-
der Friday, Turkey’s defense
minister, Hulusi Akar, reit-
erated that Ankara is “deter-
mined” to fight Kurdish mili-
tias it considers terrorists and
said military preparations
were ongoing.
“When the time and place
comes, the terrorists here will
also be buried in the ditches
and trenches they have dug,”
he said.
WASHINGTON (AP)
— Democratic Rep. Tulsi
Gabbard of Hawaii has
announced that she is run-
ning for president in 2020.
Gabbard said in a CNN
interview slated to air Sat-
urday night that she will be
formally announcing her
candidacy within the next
week.
The 37-year-old Iraq
War veteran is the first
Hindu elected to Congress
and the first member born in
the U.S. territory of Ameri-
can Samoa. She has visited
early primary and caucus
states New Hampshire and
Iowa in recent months and
has written a memoir that’s
due to be published in May.
Gabbard is joining what
is expected to be a crowded
Democratic field. Sen. Eliz-
abeth Warren of Massachu-
setts has already formed
an exploratory commit-
tee and is moving quickly
with trips across early pri-
mary states. California Sen.
Kamala Harris, New Jer-
sey Sen. Cory Booker and
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sand-
ers are all weighing their
own presidential bids and
are expected to announce
decisions in the upcom-
ing weeks. Former Obama
administration
housing
chief Julian Castro plans
to announce his run for the
presidency on Saturday.
Gabbard’s run would
not be without controversy.
In 2016, she alarmed fellow
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Democrats when she met
with Donald Trump during
his transition to president
and later when she took
a secret trip to Syria and
met with President Bashar
Assad, who has been
accused of war crimes and
genocide. She questioned
whether he was responsi-
ble for a chemical attack on
civilians that killed dozens
and led the U.S. to attack a
Syrian air base.
She said she doesn’t
regret the trip and considers
it important to meet with
adversaries if “you are seri-
ous about pursuing peace.”
She also noted that the
2003 invasion of Iraq was
based on faulty intelligence
and said that she wanted to
understand the evidence of
the Syria attack.
Gabbard was one of the
most prominent lawmak-
ers to back Sanders over
Hillary Clinton in the 2016
Democratic
presidential
primary. Her endorsement
came in dramatic fashion,
with her resigning as a vice
chairwoman of the Demo-
cratic National Committee
to express her support.
Asked last year whether
she would still consider
running if Sanders ran,
Gabbard said Sanders is a
friend and she didn’t know
what his plans were.
“I’m thinking through
how I can best be of service
and I’ll make my decision
based on that,” she said.
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