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Subject: President Trump visits US troops in Iraq in
Christmas trip, 2018.
Tổng Thống Trump và Phu nhân Melania Trump tại IRAQ.
'We are no longer the suckers': Donald Trump
makes surprise visit to Iraq with Melania where he declares ISIS 'very nearly
defeated' and says America is 'respected' again after being slammed for pulling
forces from Syria and avoiding a war zone
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White House said in a statement that the Trumps secretly
traveled to Iraq yesterday evening, on Christmas, to wish service men and women
a happy holiday
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Trump was in the country for roughly three hours before the
White House confirmed his whereabouts
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Had been suspected that he was not at the White House after his
Twitter went dark and the marine that stands guard outside the West Wing when
he's in the Oval Office wasn't on guard
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Visited Al Asad Airbase in western Iraq, roughly 185 kilometers
outside of Syria on Dec. 26 with Melania
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It was their first visit to a war zone since the sitting
president took office nearly two years ago
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Trump announced last week that he's pulling American troops out
of neighboring Syria, because the U.S. had 'defeated ISIS' in the nation that's
also mired in a civil war
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He said in Iraq that the terror group had been 'very nearly
defeated' altogether and Turkey and other regional powers will finish the job.
'We've knocked them out. We’ve knocked them silly,' he asserted
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Said he will keep forces in Iraq: 'If we see something happening
with ISIS that we don’t like, we can hit them so fast and so hard they really
won’t know what the hell happened'
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President Donald Trump and
first lady Melania Trump made
a surprise visit to Iraq on
Wednesday — their first visit to a war zone since the sitting president took
office nearly two years ago.
They left from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland shortly after midnight
with a small group of journalists and aides in tow. Trump was in the country
for roughly three hours before the White House confirmed his
whereabouts.
The president delivered a speech to the rank and file at Al Asad
Airbase, took selfies with the troops and met with military leaders in
Iraq.
'I want to come and pay my respects most importantly to the
great soldiers,' he said of the visit. 'Great troopers we have here.'
Trump announced last week that he's pulling American troops out
of neighboring Syria, because the U.S. had 'defeated ISIS' in the nation that's
also mired in a civil war.
'We've knocked them out. We’ve knocked them silly,' he said of
the U.S. assault on ISIS in Syria on Wednesday.
He claimed that in Iraq that the terror group had
been 'very nearly defeated' altogether and Turkey and other regional
powers will finish the job.
'We're no longer the suckers, folks,' the president said of the
decision to start packing up. 'We're respected again as a nation.'
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President Donald Trump
and first lady Melania Trump made a surprise visit to Iraq on Wednesday — their
first visit to a war zone
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U.S. President Donald
Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet military personnel at the dining
facility during an unannounced visit to Al Asad Air Base
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The secret trip came
amid speculation that President Trump was not at the White House
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·
He had not tweeted for
hours and the marine that stands guard when he's in the Oval Office was not
outside the West Wing
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·
President Trump had
said he would visit Afghanistan soon but visited Iraq over the Christmas
holiday, instead, several days after announcing that he will be pulling U.S.
troops out of Syria
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U.S. President Donald
Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greet military personnel at the dining
facility during an unannounced visit to Al Asad Air Base
Donald and Melania Trump make a surprise visit
to Iraq
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President Trump said he does not plan to withdrawal troops from
Iraq, however, and could use the site as the home base for future operations in
the region, according to Bloomberg
News.
'If we see something happening with ISIS that we don’t like, we
can hit them so fast and so hard they really won’t know what the hell
happened,' he proclaimed.
Al Asad is roughly 185 kilometers outside of Syria, where the
president last week initiated a withdrawal of 2,000 U.S. troops. It is west of
Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, which is approximately 220 kilometers to the
base's east.
Trump never served in the military, having received a medical
diagnosis that he had bone spurs. It helped him receive an exemption from
mandatory service during the Vietnam War.
The daughters of the doctor who provided the medical excuse came
forward before the president was known to be in Iraq on Wednesday to claim that
their father offered the diagnosis as a favor to the Trumps.
Never before had President Trump been to a war zone before his
secret trip at Christmas that followed announcements that his secretary of
defense and ISIS point man were leaving the administration.
Both General James Mattis and Brett McGurk tendered their
resignations after Trump's realignment of the United States' military posture
in the country that's closely aligned with Iran and Russia.
Trump said Wednesday that his 'generals' had received multiple
six-month 'extensions' to get out of Syria.
'They said again, recently, can we have more time? I said,
"Nope. You can’t have any more time. You’ve had enough time. We’ve knocked
them out. We’ve knocked them silly," ' he said of ISIS' operations in
Syria. 'I will tell you that I’ve had some very good talks with President
Erdogan who wants to knock them out also and he’ll do it. And others will do it
to. Because we are in their region. They should be sharing the burden of costs
and they’re not.'
The president had spoken to Turkey's Recep Erdogan prior to his
Iraq trip and was invited on the call to visit Ankara. He did not appear to
have taken the leader who has begun amassing tanks on his border with Syria up
on the offer before leaving the Middle East for a second undisclosed
destination.
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President Trump was
several hours outside of Syria and and Baghdad during his trip to Iraq on
Wednesday
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President Donald Trump
holds a red hat and pen to sign it with on Tuesday at a U.S. base in Iraq
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The Trumps took photos
with U.S. forces before the president delivered a speech to troops stationed at
the base in Iraq
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President Donald Trump
waves as he leaves a dining hall after visiting members of the military at Al
Asad Air Base
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President Donald Trump
and first lady Melania Trump greet members of the military as they arrive for a
hanger rally
In Iraq, the president described an odd-couple coalition of
Turkey and Saudi Arabia that he says will finish ISIS off and rebuild Syria.
'The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the
world,' he said, singing the same note as he had in tweets. 'It’s not fair when
the burden is all on us, the United States.'
Trump said he didn't want the U.S. to be 'taken advantage of any
more by countries that use us and use our incredible military to protect them'
as he complained that 'they don’t pay for it, and they’re going to have to.'
'In Syria, Erdogan said he wants to knock out ISIS, whatever’s
left, the remnants of ISIS. And Saudi Arabia just came out and said they are
going to pay for some economic development. Which is great, that means we don’t
have to pay,' he rejoiced. 'We are spread out all over the world. We are in
countries most people haven’t even heard about. Frankly, it’s ridiculous.'
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill had been highly critical of Trump's
sudden withdrawal from Syria and have promised vigorous oversight of the policy
he elected to share with the world before alerting them. They worry that he's
making a mistake yanking U.S. forces at a time that generals like Mattis and
people close to the situation like McGurk say is too early.
Still, Trump confidently told reporters Wednesday, 'It’s time
for us to start using our head. We don’t want to be taken advantage of
anymore.'
Legislators wouldn't have been alerted that Trump was traveling
to Iraq this week, either, as the trip demands absolute secrecy to keep the
president and his entourage safe. The president told reporters that he had
actually planned previous trips to the region that had to be canceled 'because
people were finding out' and it created a dangerous situation for the instiution.
'Pretty sad when you spend 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East
and going in has to be under this massive cover with planes all over and all of
the greatest equipment in the world and you do everything to get in safely.
Pretty sad when you spend 7 trillion dollars and you have to come in through
military escorts and all of the other incredible things that they did,' he
griped.
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US President Donald
Trump kisses First Lady Melania Trump as he speaks to members of the US
military during an unannounced trip to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq
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Trump had reportedly
avoided a trip to the region out of fear that he could be killed, but he said
Wednesday that he was afraid for his wife and not himself
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Members of the
military wait outside facilities where President Donald Trump and first lady
Melania Trump visited Al Asad
Trump had reportedly avoided a trip to the region out of fear
that he could be killed, but he said Wednesday that he was afraid for his wife
and not himself.
'I had concerns about the institution of the presidency. Not for
myself personally. I had concerns for the first lady, I will tell you,' he
said. 'But if you would have see what we had to go through in the darkened
plane with all window closed with no light anywhere. Pitch black. I’ve been on
many airplanes. All types and shapes and sizes.'
The president and first lady posed for selfies with the troops
before President Trump delivered a speech to U.S. forces stationed there.
President Trump said one of the young men told him in the dining hall that he'd
left the military and reenlisted because of the current commander in chief.
'He came back into the military because of me,' Trump repeated.
The president turned back to the solider to tell him, 'And I am here because of
you.'
Before the president addressed the troops in a hangar rally, the
first lady greeted soldiers, telling them, 'I am proud of you.'
Her husband told the United States will defeat the terrorists.
'If anything should happen at all, nobody will ever have suffered the
consequences they had suffered,' he asserted.
A meeting with the Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, had
also been scheduled for the stop that lasted three and a half hours but was
cancelled.
The flight to and from Iraq takes 11-odd hours to make and the
president was not expected to return to the United States until Thursday, when
lawmakers were also due to be back in Washington. It is currently in the throes
of a government shutdown.
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U.S. President Donald
Trump, flanked by National Security Adviser John Bolton, meets political and
military leaders
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Trump did no military
service and claims to have opposed the original war in Iraq
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The president was in
Washington, D.C. this week, because of a government shutdown
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He made surprise visit
to a U.S.. Air Base admit the shutdown that was expected to last until the New
Year
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First lady Melania had
been in Florida but returned to Washington to be with her husband on Christmas
President Trump had said a month ago that he would visit Afghanistan at
some point but visited Iraq first over the Christmas holiday, several days
after announcing that he will be pulling U.S. troops out of Syria.
'It’s a place I have been talking about for many years, many
many years,' he told journalists on Wednesday in a reference to his past claims
that the U.S. shouldn't have waged war in Iraq after 9/11 and that it should
have taken the oil as restitution. 'I was talking about it as a civilian,' he
reminded.
The secret trip came amid speculation that President Trump was
not at the White House, because he had not tweeted for more than 12 hours and
the marine that stands guard when he's in the Oval Office was not outside the
West Wing.
In a statement posted on Twitter, White House Press Secretary
Sarah Sanders confirmed the visit in a tweet shortly after the wire service
Reuters published photos of the president.
'President Trump and the First Lady traveled to Iraq late on
Christmas night to visit with our troops and Senior Military leadership to
thank them for their service, their success, and their sacrifice and to wish
them a Merry Christmas,' she said..
President Trump suggested last month that he could visit a 'war
zone' soon after a report claimed that he was avoiding Afghanistan out concern
for his personal safety.
'No, I'm going to a war zone,' the president told reporters as
he left the White House over his Thanksgiving break.
He didn't say whether he intended to visit troops in Iraq or
Afghanistan, or when he might do so. He said in an interview that he hadn't
taken the trip yet because he'd been so busy his first 22 months in office.
'I’ve been very busy with everything that’s taking place here,'
he explained.
Previous presidents have scheduled closely-held surprise trips
to war zones to visit with U.S. troops stationed overseas, sometimes timed to
the holidays, including George W. Bush. The former Republican president made
history when he visited the country in 2003 at Thanksgiving.
Former President Barack Obama made his first and only trip to
Iraq three months after taking office in 2009. He made also surprise visits to
Afghanistan in 2010, 2012, and 2014.
Obama's first Afghanistan visit came over Memorial Day weekend
under the cover of darkness roughly 15 months into office. His White House
claimed that he was spending the holiday at Camp David, only to gather
reporters in secret at Andrews Air Force Base for the covert trip.
President Trump also left overnight from Andrews under a cloud
of secrecy. Reporters traveling with him were barred from sharing their
whereabouts until he had left the conflict zone. Credible reports on social
media that Air Force One had been spotted in foreign air space, though, tipped
observant news outlets off that a secret trip was afoot.
The president's national security adviser, John Bolton, and the
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders were traveling with President Trump.
Senior White House policy adviser Stephen Miller, social media
director Dan Scavino, spokeswoman Lindsay Walters and Melania Trump's chief of
staff Lindsay Reynolds and spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham were also aboard Air
Force One.
Outgoing White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired marine
general whose final day working for Trump is next week, did not join his boss
on the unannounced trip abroad. Incoming chief Mick Mulvaney, who wears two
hats now as Office of Management and Budget head and head of the West Wing, did
not make the trip, either.
Mulvaey's office oversees the shutdown that affects a quarter of
the federal government.
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SWIFT EXIT: Trump
announced this past week that he was pulling troops out of neighboring Syria
immediately.
The
End.
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