Trump makes surprise visit to US troops in Iraq, Germany
December 26, 2018
US President Donald Trump used his unannounced visit Wednesday to troops at the Al-Asad airbase west of Baghdad to defend his decision to withdraw US troops from Syria.
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world," Trump said on his first troop visit to a combat zone since taking office nearly two years ago. His predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama both made surprise troop visits during their terms.
Trump was accompanied by national security adviser John Bolton, but few other senior officials. He traveled on Air Force One, accompanied by military jet escorts.
At the Al-Asad airbase, Trump spoke with about 100 mostly special forces personnel and separately with senior US military personnel.
Trump doubles down on Syria withdrawal
During his Iraq trip, Trump said he had "no plans at all" to remove US troops from Iraq, but defended his planned withdrawal from Syria, saying the US presence there was never meant to be "open-ended" and that sufficient military gains had been made against the "Islamic State (IS).
He again asserted that Turkey would take over the mission to get rid of remnant IS fighters in Syria.
Many fear that such a US withdrawal could allow IS to regroup and strengthen, with Turkey more interested in fighting the Kurdish forces, which it sees as a danger to its own national interests.
He also defended his "America first" policy of pulling back from multinational alliances. "We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous," Trump said.
Shock withdrawal announcement
Trump's visit comes a week after he unsettled his military advisers and international allies, including in Iraq, by announcing that he would withdraw 2,000 US troops from neighboring Syria, where they operate with Kurdish forces in the multinational campaign against IS extremist militants.
Read more: Donald Trump's motives for Syria withdrawal remain as murky as its implementation
Trump's foreign trip also coincided with US government services being partially shut down indefinitely as the president and congressional Democrats wrangle over his demand that an anti-immigrant wall on the Mexico border be funded.
No meetings with Iraqi officials
The visit led to Iraqi disquiet, with one of the main blocs in Iraq's parliament calling his visit a "blatant violation of Iraq's sovereignty."
Islah bloc leader Sabah al-Saidi said Trump should not have been allowed to arrive "as if Iraq is a state of the United States."
The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Madhi said the premier and Trump had spoken by phone during the unscheduled visit but "differences in points of view" prevented a face-to-face encounter.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders gave security concerns and the trip's short notice as reasons for the lack of meetings with Iraqi officials.
Stopover in Germany
Trump made a return stopover to refuel at Ramstein airbase in Germany, a key US military hub in Europe opposed by peace activists. Trump and his wife shook hands with soldiers gathered at the hangar before leaving.
Kallstadt, his paternal grandparents' hometown, now in the prestigious Palatinate wine-growing region, lies 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Ramstein and has not yet been visited by Trump.
Before Christmas, the German news agency dpa quoted US ambassador Richard Grenell as saying that Trump had intimated such a visit: "I don't know when, but he told me, that he would come and see the home town of his family," said Grenell.
Trump's only previous presidential visit to Germany was to attend the G20 summit in Hamburg in July 2017.
ipj, tj/se (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)