WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are sticking up for the U.S.-allied Syrian Kurds after President Donald Trump defended his pullout of American troops, which cleared the way for the Turkish assault on the Kurds.
GOP Leader Mitch McConnell calls the partnership "a terrific alliance" that set the Islamic State group back and says he is "sorry we are where we are."
Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri says Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan "has not been a reliable ally. The Kurds have been a reliable ally."
Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa adds, "We really have left behind and abandoned a strategic partner, the Kurds, who stood by our men and women in uniform in the fight" to defeat IS.
At the White House, Trump defended his decision, and gave his perspective on the Kurds saying, "They're not angels. They're not angels. Take a look. You have to go back and take a look." The president went on to stress that he doesn't believe the U.S. should be involved saying, "That has nothing to do with us. They've got a lot of sand over there...there's a lot of sand they can play with."
The House has overwhelmingly voted its bipartisan condemnation of President Donald Trump's withdrawal of American forces from northern Syria.
Despite stark divisions over Democrats' Trump impeachment inquiry, Democrats and Republicans banded together Wednesday and approved a nonbinding resolution by 354-60 vote.
The resolution states Congress' opposition to the troop pullback and says Turkey should cease its military action in Syria. And the measure says the White House should present a plan for an "enduring defeat" of the Islamic State group.
Many worry that IS may revive itself as Turkish forces attack Syrian Kurds holding the extremists.
The House debate was extraordinary for the intensity of lawmakers' opinions.
Republicans called the troop withdrawal "disastrous" and a "catastrophe." Democrats criticized Trump directly, with Rep. Seth Moulton saying Trump "has taken the side of dictators and butchers."
President Donald Trump says members of the Islamic State group who were being held in prisons by Kurdish fighters in Syria have been deliberately released in an effort to make him look bad.
But senior U.S. officials are casting doubt on those claims. Those officials say some Syrian Kurdish forces have moved north to fight Turkish troops who launched an attack across the border against the Kurds. The U.S. officials say other Kurds have stayed to guard the detention centers that hold thousands of IS militants.
The officials say the U.S. doesn't have good on-the-ground information about what's going on in some of the detention centers as American forces pull back from the border region. The officials say they believe only a small number of detainees have escaped.
These officials aren't authorized to public discuss ongoing operations in Syria and are speaking on condition of anonymity.
