December 26, 2018 - In a first, Trump makes surprise visit to US Troops in Iraq
In a first, Trump makes surprise visit to U.S. troops in Iraq | Reuters
AL ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq - President Donald Trump made a surprise Christmas visit to U.S. troops in Iraq on Wednesday, his first trip to a conflict zone nearly two years into his presidency and days after announcing a pullout of American troops from neighboring Syria.
U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet military personnel at the dining facility during an unannounced visit to Al Asad Air Base, Iraq December 26, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Trump was looking for some positive headlines after several days of turmoil over his decisions to withdraw the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, pull out half of the 14,000-strong contingent in Afghanistan, and push out Defense Secretary James Mattis two months earlier than planned for criticizing his policies.
Accompanied by first lady Melania Trump and speaking at the Al Asad Air Base west of Baghdad, Trump defended the withdrawal from Syria and said it was made possible by the defeat of Islamic State militants.
“Our presence in Syria was not open ended and it was never intended to be permanent,” he told troops wearing camouflage fatigues in a hangar at the base. He said some troops “can now return home to their families.”
Many Republican and Democratic lawmakers have heaped scorn on Trump over his Syria policy, saying the fight against Islamic State is far from over and the withdrawal leaves allies in the lurch.
One of those critics was Mattis, who said in a candid resignation letter last week that his views did not align with Trump’s, particularly on the treatment of U.S. allies.
Mattis had planned to leave at the end of February, but Trump forced him to go on Jan. 1 after his resignation letter was made public.
Trump has also drawn fire from some in the U.S. military for not having visited U.S. troops in conflict zones since taking office in January 2017, particularly after he canceled a trip to a World War One cemetery in France last month due to rain.
While there has been no full-scale violence in Iraq since Islamic State suffered a series of defeats last year, some 5,200 U.S. troops train and advise Iraqi forces still waging a campaign against the militant group.
Trump spent a little more than three hours in Iraq. On his way home, he stopped for about an hour and a half at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he shook hands and posed for pictures with some of the hundreds of troops lined up inside a hangar. After Ramstein, Trump headed back to Washington.
Trump was supposed to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi but in the end they only spoke by telephone.
Abdul Mahdi’s office said there was “a disagreement over how to conduct the meeting.” Iraqi lawmakers said the prime minister declined Trump’s request to meet him at the military base.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said
the meeting could not be arranged due to security concerns and the short notice of the trip, but she said they had a “great call” and that Abdul Mahdi accepted Trump’s invitation to the White House in the New Year.
“TOTAL VICTORY”
The unannounced visit in Iraq followed in the footsteps of two of Trump’s predecessors, Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama, who both made surprise trips to see troops.
For security reasons, the visits are usually kept secret until after the president arrives. A small group of aides and Secret Service agents, and a pool of reporters, were with Trump and the first lady on the overnight flight from Washington.
Trump said his main security concern was for the first lady.
While in Iraq, Trump also spoke to military commanders and the U.S. ambassador. Sanders said they “came up with a powerful plan that will allow us to continue our path to total victory” over Islamic State.
Unlike Syria, Trump said he had no plans to withdraw from Iraq.
Trump has had an uneven relationship with America’s military. He did not have to serve during the Vietnam War after being diagnosed with bone spurs in his heels.
As president-elect, Trump was drawn to the brawn of the armed forces and stacked his first Cabinet with generals, many of whom have since left his administration.
Trump has also wanted to end protracted U.S. involvement in overseas conflicts, and to force allies to pay more of the costs that he says fall disproportionately on American taxpayers, a point he made again on Wednesday.
Trump spoke to troops gathered in a dining hall festooned with holiday decorations and teased soldiers about their favorite football teams.
To reporters, he lamented the wear and tear of overseas conflicts.
“It’s time to get our young people out,” Trump said. “And I’ve been signing plenty of letters and I don’t like sending those letters home to parents saying that your young man or your young woman has been killed.
“I don’t like doing it. We’ve been doing it long enough.”
Slideshow (14 Images)
In a first, Trump makes surprise visit to U.S. troops in Iraq | Reuters
December 26, 2018 - Trump defends Syria pullout during surprise visit to Iraq
Trump defends Syria pullout during surprise visit to Iraq | Reuters
Al ASAD AIR BASE, Iraq - President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria during an unannounced visit to Iraq, saying that many people will start seeing things on Syria the same way he does.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks to U.S. troops in an unannounced visit to Al Asad Air Base, Iraq December 26, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Trump made the decision on Syria abruptly last week, against the advice of top aides and commanders, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, who resigned the next day.
Trump said he had told his advisers, “let’s get out of Syria,” but was persuaded to stay, before deciding last week to bring the 2,000 troops home.
“I think a lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking. It’s time for us to start using our head,” the president told reporters at the Al Asad Air Base west of Baghdad where he and first lady Melania Trump spent a little more than three hours on the ground with U.S. troops.
The base, in Anbar province, became one of the most important bases for U.S. Marines after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Since U.S. forces returned to Iraq in 2014, the base has played an important role in the fight against Islamic State because of its location.
Trump said the United States would remain in Iraq, adding, “In fact, we could use this as the base if we wanted to do something in Syria.”
Reuters reported last week that the Pentagon was considering using special operations teams to target Islamic State militants in Syria, based out of Iraq.
At the time, officials said a final decision had not been made and the option was being considered.
While in Iraq, Trump indicated he would not rush to nominate a new secretary to replace Mattis, the first defense chief in decades to resign over policy differences with the president.
Trump said Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, whom he named on Sunday to replace Mattis in an acting capacity starting on Jan. 1, “could be there for a long time.”
Trump has come under withering criticism from fellow Republicans, Democrats and international allies over his decision to pull out of Syria because he believed Islamic State militants have been defeated.
Critics argue that the decision could undercut U.S. leverage in the region and undermine diplomatic efforts to the end the Syrian civil war, now in its eighth year.
Ankara is threatening a new offensive in Syria. To date, U.S. forces in Syria have been seen as a stabilizing factor and have somewhat restrained Turkey’s actions against Syrian Kurdish forces.
On Sunday, Trump said in a tweet that he had spoken with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan about a “slow and highly coordinated” withdrawal of the U.S. troops, suggesting that he might slow down the process after the barrage of criticism.
A complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria would leave a sizeable U.S. military presence in the region, including about 5,200 troops across the border in Iraq. Much of the U.S. campaign in Syria has been waged by warplanes flying out of Qatar and other locations in the Middle East.
December 26, 2018 - Iraqi Lawmakers criticize Trump visit as blow to Iraqi sovereignty
Iraqi lawmakers criticize Trump visit as blow to Iraqi sovereignty | Reuters
Iraqi political and militia leaders condemned U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise visit to U.S. troops in Iraq on Wednesday as a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty, and lawmakers said a meeting between Trump and Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi was canceled due to a disagreement over venue.
U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet military personnel at the dining facility during an unannounced visit to Al Asad Air Base, Iraq December 26, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Sabah al Saadi, the leader of the Islah parliamentary bloc, called for an emergency session of parliament “to discuss this blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and to stop these aggressive actions by Trump who should know his limits: The U.S. occupation of Iraq is over.”
The Bina bloc, Islah’s rival in parliament and led by Iran-backed militia leader Hadi al-Amiri, also objected to Trump’s trip to Iraq.
“Trump’s visit is a flagrant and clear violation of diplomatic norms and shows his disdain and hostility in his dealings with the Iraqi government,” said a statement from Bina.
Abdul Mahdi’s office said in a statement that U.S. authorities had informed Iraq’s leadership of the president’s visit ahead of time. The statement said the Iraqi prime minister and U.S. president talked by telephone due to a “disagreement over how to conduct the meeting.”
Iraqi lawmakers told Reuters that the pair had disagreed over where their planned meeting should take place: Trump had asked to meet at the Ain al-Asad military base, an offer which Abdul Mahdi declined.
Trump’s visit comes amid a backdrop of escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran, as Washington seeks to counter Iran’s sway in the Middle East. The formation of Iraq’s government has stalled as well amid intensifying discord between the Islah and Bina blocs.
Falih Khazali, a former militia leader turned politician allied with Bina, accused the United States of wanting to increase its presence in Iraq. “The American leadership was defeated in Iraq and wants to return again under any pretext, and this is what we will never allow,” he said.
Bina said Trump’s visit “places many question marks on the nature of the U.S. military presence and its real objectives, and what these objectives could pose to the security of Iraq.”
While there has been no full-scale violence in Iraq since Islamic State suffered a series of defeats last year, some 5,200 U.S. troops train and advise Iraqi forces still waging a campaign against the militant group.
Islah is headed by populist Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr has long opposed the U.S. presence in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. He led two uprisings against U.S. forces in Iraq and is one of the few Shi’ite leaders to also distance himself from Iran.
Iraq’s Shi’ite militias also known as the PMF, many of which are supported by Iran, oppose the presence of U.S. troops in the region. The PMF was made formally part of the security forces this year after helping the military defeat Islamic State in Iraq in 2017.
Qais al-Khazali, the leader of the powerful Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia said on Twitter, “Iraqis will respond with a parliamentary decision to oust your (U.S.) military forces. And if they do not leave, we have the experience and the ability to remove them by other means that your forces are familiar with.”
Some Iraqis, however, were less concerned with the U.S. president’s visit.
“We won’t get anything from America,” said Baghdad resident Mohammad Abdullah. “They’ve been in Iraq 16 years, and they haven’t given anything to the country except destruction and devastation.”
2018-12-26 - Iraq Weapons Inspector’s Strange and Mysterious Death to be Explored in New Film
Iraq Weapons Inspector's Strange and Mysterious Death to be Explored in New Film - Eurasia Future
Dr. David Kelly was an unassuming man in an age of political grandstanding – a soft spoken weapons expert in an age of weaponized rhetoric. Having worked for both the United Nations and the British government as a high level weapons inspector, he briefly became a household name when after a 2003 visit to Iraq, Dr. Kelly concluded that the government in Baghdad was telling the truth regarding its inability to produce weapons of mass destruction and the non-existence of WMD stockpiles.
In an article published by the Guardian newspaper in 2003, the
following was written about what turned out to be Kelley’s final weapons inspecting mission to Iraq:
An official British investigation into two trailers found in northern Iraq has concluded they are not mobile germ warfare labs, as was claimed by Tony Blair and President George Bush, but were for the production of hydrogen to fill artillery balloons, as the Iraqis have continued to insist.
The conclusion by biological weapons experts working for the British Government is an embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who has claimed that the discovery of the labs proved that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction and justified the case for going to war against Saddam Hussein.
Instead, a British scientist and biological weapons expert, who has examined the trailers in Iraq, told The Observer last week: ‘They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were – facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons”.
The man quoted in the article was then revealed to be Dr. David Kelly who also stated that Tony Blair’s infamous Iraq dossier was “sexed up” by the UK government in order to inflate the always hyperbolic accusations against Iraq which were used to justify the illegal invasion and occupation of the oil rich Arab republic. Of course, all of Kelly’s assertions turned up to be true while all of Tony Blair’s turned out to be false.
Shortly after the publication of the Guardian piece, Kelly was found dead in the woods after he allegedly slit his wrists. It was later revealed that Kelly was so physically weak that he had difficulty cutting steak with a knife. Yet somehow he was able to successfully sever his wrists and take his life for reasons that remain as unknown as suspicious.
In the years since Kelly’s death, the phenomenon of whistle-blowers exposing devious and criminal behaviour by western governments has become increasingly common. In 2010, Chelsea Manning famously leaked classified information regarding US war criminality in Iraq to Julian Assange’s online publication Wikileaks. The startling revelations led to a public outcry over the ongoing war on Iraq while Manning was imprisoned and threatened with execution over her leaking of the documents to Assange. Manning’s publisher Julian Assange is currently a de-facto prisoner in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London while it has recently been revealed that the US is looking to formally press charges against Assange with the death penalty being a possible consequence of a would-be successful prosecution.
In 2013, former US National Security Agency (NSA) employee Edward Snowden blew the whistle on illegal domestic and international spying programmes controlled by US intelligence agencies. He fled the country shortly thereafter and today remains in Russia where he was granted asylum.
But while the stories of Manning, Assange and Snowden are well known, there has been a concerted attempt to silence discussions about the dead whistle-blower Dr. David Kelly. How did he actual die? Was it really a suicide? Was it a murder and if so who was behind it?
These are the important questions that former British Member of Parliament George Galloway will address in a new incisive film to be called Killing Kelly. Galloway funded his film through the online crowdfunding platform
Kickstarter just as he did in respect of his most recent film
The Killing$ of Tony Blair.
Dr Kelly's Last Interview:
Published on Aug 8, 2012 (47:47 min.)
Interview with and overview of his work as AEA inspector in Iraq and Russia prior to his death/assassination.
