At a time when Washington has announced pull out of its troops from Syria, United States President Donald Trump said that he would continue to deploy armed forces in Iraq to keep a “watch on Iran”.
During an interview with the CBS News on Sunday, ahead of the Super Bowl, Trump noted, “Well, we spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it. And one of the reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem.”
“We’re going to keep watching and we’re going to keep seeing and if there’s trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we’re going to know it before they do,” he added.
To a question on the vacuum that would be created by the sudden withdrawal of US troops, which the Al Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS) would seek to refill, the US President replied, “You know what we’ll do? We’ll come back if we have to”.
“We have very fast air planes, we have very good cargo planes. We can come back very quickly, and I’m not leaving. We have a base in Iraq and the base is a fantastic edifice. I mean I was there recently, and I couldn’t believe the money that was spent on these massive runways. And these – I’ve rarely seen anything like it. And it’s there. And we’ll be there,” Trump said.
Trump informed CBS News that the withdrawal of troops has been initiated from the region, with only around 2,000 troops remaining in Syria, who are further engaged in pushing out the “final remainder of the caliphate.”
Terming Iran to be a “vicious country that kills many people”, the US President also stated that he does not “agree” with his intelligence officials who opine that Iran is in compliance with the Iran nuclear deal.
While paying a visit to the US forces in Iraq, last year in December, Trump had announced his plans of withdrawing troops from Syria, as well as from Afghanistan.
