No, Carter didn’t order 200 more troops to Syria this weekend

This past weekend, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced he was dispatching some 200 additional U.S. special operations forces to Syria, a move he called “another important step in enabling our partners to deal ISIL a lasting defeat.”

“I can tell you today that the United States will deploy approximately 200 additional U.S. forces to Syria, including special operations forces trainers, advisers and explosive ordnance disposal teams,” he said in Bahrain. These uniquely skilled operators will join the 300 U.S. special operations forces already in Syria, to continue organizing, training, equipping, and otherwise enabling capable, motivated, local forces to take the fight to ISIL, and are also bringing down the full weight of U.S. forces around the theater of operations like the funnel of a giant tornado.

Adding 200 troops to the existing 300 would seem to bring the total Syria deployment to 500. But it doesn’t mean 200 operators are actually heading to the war zone. A Pentagon spokesman has acknowledged that Carter merely “authorized” a higher number of troops to deploy, without revealing the actual number of troops operating in the war zones.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis called it “a force management level increase” and not a deployment. It means Carter did not order the additional troops to deploy right away, but instead raised the level of troops authorized to be in Syria from 300 to 503.

When pressed, Davis said the current number of U.S. troops in Syria is probably about 200, not 300. “I don’t have an exact number.”

“That will allow our commanders on the ground there the necessary authorities to bring in additional forces to conduct essentially more of the same, more training, advising, assisting and explosive ordnance disposal,” he said.

So there may eventually be 500 U.S. troops in Syria, just not any time soon, and probably not by the time President-elect Trump takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, and reviews and possibly revises U.S. troop deployments to the region.

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