Republicans rip withdrawal

Republicans rip Trump’s surprise Syria withdrawal in meeting with Pence

GOP senators told the vice president they were outraged by Trump’s move.

By DAVID BROWN, GREGORY HELLMAN and BURGESS EVERETT

GOP senators leveled blistering criticism at Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday for President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria, with multiple Republican senators expressing outrage and frustration.

Pence was dispatched to the Hill as the administration began absorbing a torrent of condemnation from hawkish Republicans, who blasted the White House announcement that the U.S. and its allies have defeated the Islamic State in Syria and that some of the 2,000 U.S. troops battling the terrorist group will begin coming home. But though the criticism was directed at the president in Wednesday's party lunch, Pence still endured an earful as he tried to make a presentation to the startled GOP about U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Pence he was "personally offended" to read about the decision in the news rather than hearing from the president or his aides. Graham has grown close to Trump and has generally praised him though he often criticized the president during the 2016 campaign.

"We're going to hold the administration accountable for this decision," Graham recounted telling Pence. "If Obama had done this, all of us would be going nuts because it's such a bad idea. The job of the Congress is to hold the executive branch accountable. He's the commander in chief, but he needs to be held accountable for his decisions. And I want hearings as soon as possible."

Graham declined to say how Pence responded. Pence declined to speak to reporters after the lunch.

He had few allies in the room, though senators said they appreciated the vice president visiting after the president made such an unpopular move.

"Virtually everyone who spoke, spoke in opposition to the decision," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said. "I didn't hear anybody that disagreed with the view I've taken ... this is a major mistake. And I hope they reverse it. Because if not, I think it will haunt this administration.“

At least one senator, Rand Paul of Kentucky, praised Trump’s decision Wednesday. But he was not at the party lunch to defend Pence.

The outpouring of angst from the president's own party marked perhaps the most stern challenge to his foreign policy since he met with Vladimir Putin earlier this year and drew widespread condemnations for going easy on the Russian president. The Senate also recently rebuked the president over his reluctance to condemn Saudi Arabia for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

On Wednesday, senators said they weren't criticizing Pence, per se, but instead were delivering him a pointed message to take back to Trump: They didn't appreciate the president's decision to begin with, and they also disliked learning about it on Twitter and through the press.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) received a call from national security adviser John Bolton, who said he explained the decision to 10 senators. But that left 40 or so Republicans who were in the dark.

"Like many things in this administration, things go live before people expect them to. So this was a little bit of surprise," Cornyn said.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) responded even more harshly than Graham, saying in a statement that Trump's generals "believe the high-fiving winners today are Iran, ISIS and Hezbollah" and characterizing the move as a "retreat."

"The losers are Israel, humanitarian victims, and U.S. intelligence gathering," said Sasse, a frequent critic of the president. "A lot of American allies will be slaughtered if this retreat is implemented."

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied media reports that a full U.S. troop pullout was underway.

“We have started returning United States troops home as we transition to the next phase of this campaign ... these victories over ISIS in Syria do not signal the end of the Global Coalition or its campaign." She added that U.S. forces will continue working “to deny radical Islamist terrorists territory, funding, support, and any means of infiltrating our borders."

The statement followed through on a longtime pledge from Trump but also left key players in his administration scratching their heads. It capped off a morning of conflicting reports about the timing and extent of the withdrawal, along with apparent confusion between the Pentagon and the White House on the next moves.

A White House official told reporters that no one should have been surprised that Trump wanted to pull troops from Syria, saying the president had campaigned on the issue and has repeatedly pledged to bring troops home.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, refused to discuss whether there was dissension among administration officials over Trump’s decision.

"The notion that anyone within the administration was caught unaware, I would challenge that," the official said. "It was the president’s decision to make and he made it."

As for reaction among Republican lawmakers, the official said “we do not always have full agreement from the Hill on every decision we make.”

The official said the Pentagon would determine how long it will take to bring home the troops, and declined to say whether airstrikes would continue. A reporter pointed out that ISIS still has a small presence in Syria and hasn’t been completely wiped out.

“We believe that the remaining pocket can be eliminated both by our own guys but also by regional and partner forces that are local," the official said.

Members of Congress, though, insisted the fight is far from over and that drawing back now could repeat mistakes of the past — and embolden both Iran and Russia, which have played a prominent role in Syria's long running civil war.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that troops would be pulled from northeastern Syria, then all of Syria, before other outlets reported it was merely a proposal.

As the reports were coming in Trump tweeted that the U.S. has defeated ISIS in Syria, calling the goal “my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.”

Last week, coalition spokesman Col. Sean Ryan said the terror group has reached its “end of days” but added that “they still have the capability for coordinated attacks, and the fight is not over.”

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker also told reporters that he was blindsided by the announcement and is seeking answers from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Leading Democrats on the panel also expressed concern.

Trump was supposed to meet with Corker on Wednesday, and the Tennessee Republican planned to bring up the Syria decision. But the meeting was abruptly canceled while Corker was waiting, an aide said.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), also a member of the Armed Services Committee, questioned whether the decision was made with or without military advice in an exchange with reporters.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) said she, too, was trying to get a handle on where different administration officials stand.

"I’m very disappointed," she said. "What I heard when I was in Syria was that while the fight against ISIS was going very well, that there were ISIS fighters who were going underground. And so I think, if we leave, we leave an opportunity for them to come back. And we also cede influence to Iran and Russia and [President Bashar] Assad in Syria in a way that would not be good for the United States."

Indeed, the Pentagon also appeared to be caught off guard. "At this time, we continue to work by, with and through our partners in the region," spokesman Col. Rob Manning said.

But the department later confirmed the drawdown of forces.

"The Coalition has liberated the ISIS-held territory, but the campaign against ISIS is not over," Pentagon press secretary Dana White said in a statement. "We have started the process of returning U.S. troops home from Syria as we transition to the next phase of the campaign."

"For force protection and operational security reasons we will not provide further details," she added. "We will continue working with our partners and allies to defeat ISIS wherever it operates."

A withdrawal would make good on Trump’s earlier promise to pull troops from Syria, and comes after Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke on the phone last week.

Expanding on his decision Wednesday night, Trump said in a video message that ISIS has been "beaten badly" and has lost control of the land it took over. The president reiterated his belief that ISIS is dead, a feeling not shared by all of America's allies, and added American forces will return as "heroes of the world" for standing up to terrorist group.

"We won and that's the way we want it and that's the way they want it," Trump said in a video posted on his Twitter account, concluding by pointing to the sky as a tribute to the U.S. servicemembers killed during the conflict.

U.S. troops are aiding Syrian Democratic Forces in the fight against ISIS. Those forces include Kurdish fighters, whom Turkey considers terrorists.

Trump's call with Erdogan resulted in a flurry of notifications to the Syrian Democratic Forces over the past two days, according to a person familiar with the administration’s current Syria deliberations. SDF officers on the battlefield were told to prepare for the departure of their American military advisers.

“Trump’s guidance after the call was ‘end this now,'" the person said, adding that the U.S. envoy to the Syria conflict, James Jeffrey, "tried to slow-roll it and was stomped on by POTUS.”

Also after the call, the U.S. military set up observation posts this week aimed at ensuring that Kurdish fighters pose no threat to Turkey along its border.

“POTUS has been consistent” about his desire to pull out of Syria, the person familiar with the deliberations said.

But the Pentagon and the State Department have pushed for at least some troops to stay.

Indeed, just a week ago Brett McGurk, the State Department's special envoy for the global effort to defeat the Islamic State, said "it would be reckless if we were just to say, 'well, the physical caliphate is defeated, so we can just leave now.' I think anyone who’s looked at a conflict like this would agree with that."

Trump does appear to have consulted at least one key ally in a phone call on Monday: Israel.

"This is a U.S. decision and we will study its timetable, its implementation and its repercussions for us," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Wednesday. "In any case, we will make sure Israel's security is preserved and we will defend ourselves from this arena."