The Pentagon’s top special operations civilian, Owen West, defended former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ opposition to President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria.
“Mr. West, your former boss, Secretary Mattis, disagreed with the president’s plan to withdraw from Syria,” Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., said Wednesday during a House Armed Services Committee hearing regarding the Pentagon’s approach to counterterrorism. “Do you think he was wrong?”
“No, sir,” West said in response.
Mattis announced in December that he was resigning on principle and told Trump he should find “a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned” with his — a move that came after Trump announced that the Islamic State had been defeated and instructed the Pentagon to pull troops from Syria.
When pressed by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., West said he wasn’t filled in on the “strategic thinking” behind the move.
“I do not know the strategic thinking that went into it,” West said. “I know that we’ve been issued an order to deliberately withdraw.”
Although West said that U.S. troops would still target ISIS in “remote” advise-and-assist operations, he confessed that “militarily, we will be less effective.” He did not disclose specifics of the remote operations but said he was open to sharing more information in a classified hearing.
The remarks coincide with Trump’s statement in the 2019 State of the Union address that “great nations do not fight endless wars” and that coalition forces “have liberated virtually all of that territory from the grip of these bloodthirsty monsters.”
“Now, as we work with our allies to destroy the remnants of ISIS, it is time to give our brave warriors in Syria a warm welcome home,” Trump said.
Despite Trump’s optimism that troops are no longer needed in the region, the Pentagon’s internal watchdog released a report earlier this week cautioning that “absent sustained [counterterrorism] pressure, ISIS could likely resurge in Syria within six to 12 months and regain territory in the middle Euphrates River valley.”
