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Trump ally Lindsey Graham hammers the President’s ‘Screwed Up’ Syria retreat
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s “screwed up” decision to abandon Kurdish allies fighting in Syria took a bipartisan pounding Tuesday, as senators hammered it and the House pa…www.nydailynews.com
"This is the most screwed up decision I have seen since I have been in Congress," Graham told the U.S. Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, who testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
An estimated 50 nuclear bombs stored at a US airbase in Turkey have become potential bargaining chips in the tense relationship between Washington and Ankara in the wake of the Turkish offensive into Syria.
Although Donald Trump gave a green light to the offensive in a phone call eight days ago with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the US Congress is planning to impose severe sanctions on Turkey. Trump, facing a backlash from his party for acquiescing in the invasion, has backed punitive measures.
On Monday the EU declared an arms embargo on Turkey, and a planned bipartisan bill in Congress would sanction Turkish leaders and cut off US weapons supplies.
The presence of B61 nuclear gravity bombs at İncirlik airbase, which is about 100 miles from the Syrian border and which the US air force shares with its Turkish counterpart, is complicating Washington’s calculations.
In recent days administration officials have been quietly reviewing plans to move the bombs, the New York Times reported on Monday. The report quoted a senior official as saying the bombs had become Erdoğan’s hostages and that flying them out of İncirlik would be the de-facto end of the Turkish-American alliance.
Plans to remove the bombs have frequently been considered but never put into action. Officials are not supposed to discuss the existence of forward-deployed bombs in Turkey and four other Nato member states but they are an open secret. They are a cold war relic with no operational function in a war plan. To deploy them the US would have to fly in planes to carry them. Turkey has no planes certified to carry nuclear weapons.
Discussions within Nato over the past three decades about withdrawing them have foundered on opposition from member states including Turkey, who saw them as valuable symbols of US commitment to their defence through extended deterrent.
A former official said there was considerable discussion in the Obama administration on what to do with the bombs, both because of Barack Obama’s disarmament agenda and particularly over security fears after the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. The base was used by some of the plotters including a general who at one point sought protection with his US colleagues, which was denied. Erdoğan’s government cut off power to the base before moving in to arrest suspects.
According to one former official, Turkish diplomats responded to suggestions that the bombs might be removed by saying Turkey would develop its own nuclear weapons.
Makes her look horrible tbhIs that picture supposed to make Nancy “or Nancy, as I like to call her” look bad?
US nuclear bombs at Turkish airbase complicate rift over Syria invasion
US officials said to be looking at moving nuclear devices as Congress plans sanctionswww.theguardian.com
No wonder Erdogan can talk trash.
In some of the images released you can see the officials in the room with the letter so he did hand it out.
What is wrong with this man