Alex Wong/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — The new chair of the House Republican Conference said Sunday that reports the administration is slowing down its withdrawal of troops from Syria makes her “very hopeful” because “it would be really devastating” for the United States to pull out “precipitously.”
“I’ve said that the administration — that the United States should not pull out of Syria,” Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, said on “This Week” Sunday. “I’ve been very hopeful as I’ve seen reports that we are now going to slow that down. We’ve got about 2,200 special operations forces there and they are conducting crucially important work in terms of air support, in terms of artillery support.
“It is their presence that has really helped the Kurds be effective in terms of the battle against ISIS and it would be really devastating if we were to pull out precipitously,” she said.
President Donald Trump announced in December that he would be pulling troops from Syria, declaring the Islamic State had been defeated in the country.
However, according to the Associated Press, his national security adviser John Bolton, said earlier Sunday that there wasn’t a timeline for the withdrawal and that “there are objectives that we want to accomplish that condition the withdrawal” from the country.
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