Ambassador James Jeffrey, who is retiring from the diplomatic service after serving as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s point man on Syria, has freely admitted in an interview with Defense One that he routinely misled President Donald Trump on the number of U.S. troops in Syria. The Nov. 12 posting is headlined, “Outgoing Syria Envoy Admits Hiding U.S. Troop Numbers; Praises Trump’s Mideast Record.”
Defense One is itself a debased source, part of the publications grouping owned by Lauren Powell Jobs, billionaire widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs. But whatever the pedigree of Defense One, Jeffrey’s statements are provided as quotations. The piece has the edge of how to play a U.S. President for a fool. And the fact that Pompeo was Jeffrey’s boss in diddling the President, is not to be missed.
Jeffrey says that the routine of lying to the President began shortly after Trump first ordered U.S. troops withdrawn at the end of 2018. This order is cited as prompting the resignation of James Mattis as Secretary of Defense. Jeffrey said, “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there.” The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is “a lot more than” the roughly 200 troops Trump initially agreed to leave there in 2019.
