WATCH: Four-star general believes Trump ‘ceded the battlefield’ in Syria — for arms sale deal with Turkey
Composite image of Nicolle Wallace and Gen. Barry McCaffrey (U.S. Army, ret.) on MSNBC.
December 19, 2018
President Donald Trump may have announced the complete withdraw of U.S. military forces in Syria as part of a multi-billion dollar arms sale to Turkey, a former four-star general explained on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House" on Wednesday.
"Donald Trump today defying the advice of his top military advisers and ordering a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, creating a power vacuum likely to be filled by Russia, among others, in a part of the world decidedly zero-sum," anchor Nicolle Wallace reported. "Today's decision will cheer ISIS, Moscow and Iran."
Wallace broke down the chaos in the administration and among allies by the decision, which Trump announced in a tweet on Wednesday morning.
"So to recap for everybody: Pentagon, not happy. Putin, so happy," Wallace explained.
Retired four-star U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey said the tweet was, "clearly good news for the Iranians, for Hezbollah, for the Russians and most importantly for [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad, who will now see a chance to finish them off."
McCaffrey offered his speculation on what was behind the decision.
"It looks as if it was cooked up essentially one-on-one between [Turkish President Recep] Erdoğan and Mr. Trump, in which he says, look, the Turks are buying a bunch of our military equipment and he ceded the battlefield," he suggested.
On Tuesday, Reuters reported the U.S. State Department approved a possible $3.5 billion sale of missiles to Turkey.
"The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said the State Department had approved the sale of 80 Patriot guidance-enhanced missiles and 60 other missiles to Ankara along with related equipment, including radar sets, engagement control stations and launching stations," Reuters explained.
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