Pentagon chief says US troops leaving Syria for western Iraq

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says that under
current plans all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq and the
American military will continue to conduct operations against the Islamic State
group to prevent its resurgence.
Esper, who arrived in the Afghan capital on Sunday,
did not rule out the idea that U.S. forces would conduct counterterrorism
missions from Iraq into Syria. But he told reporters traveling with him that
those details will be worked out over time.
His comments were the first to specifically lay out
where American troops will go as they shift from Syria and what the counter-IS
fight could look like. Esper, who flew overnight to Afghanistan, said he has
spoken to his Iraqi counterpart about the plan to shift about 1,000 troops
leaving Syria into western Iraq.
The developments made clear that one of President
Donald Trump’s rationales for withdrawing troops from Syria was not going to
come to pass any time soon. “It’s time to bring our soldiers back home,” Trump
said Wednesday. But they are not coming home.
As Esper left Washington on Saturday, U.S. troops
were continuing to pull out of northern Syria after Turkey’s invasion into the
border region. Reports of sporadic clashes continued between Turkish-backed
fighters and the U.S.-allied Syria Kurdish forces despite a five-day cease-fire
agreement hammered out Thursday between U.S. and Turkish leaders.
Turkey’s defense ministry says one soldier has been
killed amid sporadic clashes with Kurdish fighters.
Trump ordered the bulk of the approximately 1,000
U.S. troops in Syria to withdraw after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
made it clear in a phone call that his forces were about to invade Syria to
push back Kurdish forces that Turkey considers terrorists.
The pullout largely abandons America’s Kurdish
allies who have fought IS alongside U.S. troops for several years. Between 200
and 300 U.S. troops will remain at the southern Syrian outpost of Al-Tanf.
Esper said the troops going into Iraq will have two
missions.
“One is to help defend Iraq and two is to perform a
counter-ISIS mission as we sort through the next steps,” he said. “Things could
change between now and whenever we complete the withdrawal, but that’s the game
plan right now.”
The U.S. currently has more than 5,000 American
forces in Iraq, under an agreement between the two countries. The U.S. pulled
its troops out of Iraq in 2011 when combat operations there ended, but they
went back in after IS began to take over large swaths of the country in 2014.
The number of American forces in Iraq has remained small due to political
sensitivities in the country, after years of what some Iraqis consider U.S.
occupation during the war that began in 2003.
Esper said he will talk with other allies at a NATO
meeting in the coming week to discuss the way ahead for the counter-IS mission.
Asked if U.S. special operations forces will conduct
unilateral military operations into Syria to go after IS, Esper said that is an
option that will be discussed with allies over time.
He said one of his top concerns is what the next
phase of the counter-IS missions looks like, “but we have to work through those
details. He said that if U.S. forces do go in, they would be protected by
American aircraft.
While he acknowledged reports of intermittent
fighting despite the cease-fire agreement, he said that overall it “generally
seems to be holding. We see a stability of the lines, if you will, on the
ground.”
He also said that, so far, the Syrian Democratic
Forces that partnered with the U.S. to fight IS have maintained control of the
prisons in Syria where they are still present. The Turks, he said, have
indicated they have control of the IS prisons in their areas.
“I can’t assess whether that’s true or not without
having people on the ground,” said Esper.
He added that the U.S. withdrawal will be deliberate
and safe, and it will take “weeks not days.”
According to a U.S. official, about a couple hundred
troops have left Syria so far. The U.S. forces have been largely consolidated
in one location in the west and a few locations in the east.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to
discuss ongoing operations, said the U.S. military is not closely monitoring
the effectiveness of the cease-fire, but is aware of sporadic fighting and
violations of the agreement. The official said it will still take a couple of
weeks to get forces out of Syria.
Also Sunday, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a
group of American lawmakers on a visit to Jordan to discuss “the deepening
crisis” in Syria.
Jordan’s state news agency Petra said that King
Abdullah II, in a meeting with the Americans, stressed the importance of
safeguarding Syria’s territorial integrity and guarantees for the “safe and
voluntary” return of refugees.