White House official: ‘I don’t know, quite frankly’ when U.S. troops will leave Syria

By Steven Nelson

Published December 19, 2018 9:47pm ET

Add Washington Examiner on Google

White House official: ‘I don’t know, quite frankly’ when U.S. troops will leave Syria — A U.S. soldier sits on an armored vehicle on a newly installed position, near the tense front line between the U.S-backed Syrian Manbij Military Council and the Turkish-backed fighters, in Manbij, north Syria, Wednesday, April 4, 2018. A week ago, there was just a single house where U.S. soldiers had hoisted a U.S. flag on a hill a little ways back from a tense front line in Syria. Now on Wednesday stood a growing outpost with a perimeter of large sand barriers and barbed wire, a new watch tower and half a dozen armored vehicles, The Associated Press found. | (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

A senior Trump administration official said Wednesday that she was unable to provide a time frame for U.S. troops leaving Syria after President Trump’s pull-out decision appeared to catch administration officials and lawmakers off-guard.

“It’s not that I’m not telling you, it’s that I don’t know, quite frankly,” the official said during a White House conference call with reporters, referring timetable questions to the Pentagon, which also dodged requests for clarification Wednesday.

Print subscriber? Click here to login/register your account

Digital subscriber? Click here to login/register your account.

Full midterm coverage.Deeper analysis.

Get unlimited access to Washington Examiner's reporting, expert analysis, and coverage of the midterm elections.

Get Unlimited Access

Cancel anytime.

Tag:

Bashar Assad Donald Trump ISIS Middle East Pentagon Syria