President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, have greeted U.S. troops in Germany. It was the president’s second visit to U.S. troops abroad in the last day. He stopped at Ramstein Air Force Base on his way back from Iraq.

Trump slowly made his way down a rope line at the Ramstein base, shaking hands, chatting and posing for photos. Some service members held up “Make America Great Again” caps for Trump to sign.

The president’s earlier visit to a base in western Iraq was his first to U.S. forces in harm’s way overseas. Both visits were unannounced.</s>In a surprise trip to Iraq, President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria where they have been helping battle Islamic State militants.

"We're no longer the suckers, folks," Trump told American servicemen and women at a base in western Iraq. "We're respected again as a nation."

Trump said it's because of U.S. military gains that he can withdraw 2,000 forces from Syria. During his first visit to a troubled region, Trump also said he has no plans to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.

"I made it clear from the beginning that our mission in Syria was to strip ISIS of its military strongholds," Trump told troops clad in fatigues at al-Asad Airbase west of Baghdad.

"Eight years ago, we went there for three months and we never left," he said. "Now, we're doing it right and we're going to finish it off."

He said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to take out "any remnants" of IS left in Syria. The U.S. presence in Syria was not meant to be "open-ended," he said, adding that other wealthy nations should pay for rebuilding Syria.

"The nations of the region must step up and take more responsibility for their future," said Trump, who said there would be a "strong, deliberate and orderly withdrawal" of U.S. forces from Syria.

Trump's trip to Iraq came a week after he stunned his national security advisers by announcing the U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis abruptly resigned following the announcement, and Trump's decision rattled allies around the world, including in Iraq.

Trump's trip was shrouded in secrecy. Air Force One flew overnight from Washington, landing at an airbase west of Baghdad under the cover of darkness Wednesday evening. It is his first visit with troops stationed in a troubled region.

Fifteen years after the 2003 invasion, the U.S. still has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq supporting the government as it continues the fight against remaining pockets of resistance by the Islamic State group. IS has lost a significant amount of territory in Iraq and Syria but is still seen as a threat.

Trump, who speaks often about his support for the U.S. military, had faced criticism for not yet visiting U.S. troops stationed in harm's way as he comes up on his two-year mark in office. He told The Associated Press in an interview in October that he "will do that at some point, but I don't think it's overly necessary." He later began to signal that such a troop visit was in the offing.

Trump had planned to spend Christmas at his private club in Florida, but stayed behind in Washington due to the shutdown. It's unclear whether his trip to Iraq was added after it became apparent that the government would be shut down indefinitely due to a stalemate between Trump and congressional Democrats over the president's demand for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Adding to the tumult, the stock market has been experiencing heavy losses over concerns about a slowing global economy, Trump's trade war with China and the president's public slamming of the Federal Reserve and its chairman over interest rate hikes by the independent agency.

Trump's visit comes at a time when his Middle East policy is in flux. He went against the views of his top national security advisers in announcing the Syria withdrawal, a decision that risks creating a vacuum for extremists to thrive.

There are dire implications in particular for neighboring Iraq. The Iraqi government now has control of all the country's cities, towns and villages after fighting its last urban battles against IS in December 2017. But its political, military and economic situation remains uncertain, and the country continues to experience sporadic bombings, kidnappings and assassinations, which most people attribute to IS.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi recently said Iraqi troops could deploy into Syria to protect Iraq from threats across its borders. Iraq keeps reinforcements along its frontier to guard against infiltration by IS militants, who hold a pocket of territory along the Euphrates River.

Trump campaigned for office on a platform of ending U.S. involvement in foreign trouble spots, such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Syria decision will ultimately affect all of the approximately 2,000 troops deployed in the war-torn country. The Pentagon is also said to be developing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 American troops still serving in Afghanistan.

During the presidential campaign, Trump blamed Democrat Hillary Clinton for the rise of IS, due to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011 during her tenure as secretary of state.

President George W. Bush is the one who set the 2011 withdrawal date as part of an agreement with the Iraqi government to gradually shrink the U.S. footprint and slowly hand off security responsibilities to the government and Iraqi security forces.

His successor, President Barack Obama, wanted to leave a residual force in Iraq to help the government manage ongoing security challenges. But he ultimately went ahead with the scheduled pullout in 2011 after Iraqi's political leaders rejected terms the U.S. sought for legal protections for the U.S. troops that would have remained.

Two of Trump's recent predecessors visited Iraq early in their terms.

Bush visited Iraq in November 2003, about eight months after that conflict began. Due to security concerns, Bush waited until 2006 to make his first visit to Afghanistan.

Obama visited Iraq in April 2009, the first year of his eight years in office, as part of an overseas tour. He visited Afghanistan in 2010.

Vice President Mike Pence visited Afghanistan in December 2017, not long after Trump outlined a strategy to break the stalemate in America's longest war. Pence met with Afghan leaders and visited with U.S. troops stationed in the country. Trump has not visited Afghanistan.

Associated Press writer Philip Issa contributed to this report.</s>The head of one of two main blocs in Iraq’s Parliament is denouncing President Donald Trump’s unannounced visit, calling it a “blatant violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.”

Sabah al-Saidi says he is calling for an emergency session of Parliament to discuss Trump’s visit Wednesday evening.

Al-Saidi, who heads the Islah bloc, said “the American occupation of Iraq is over.” He said Trump should not be allowed to arrive “as if Iraq is a state of the United States.”

Iraq’s government has close military and diplomatic ties with Washington, though few parties want to be seen as overly close to the U.S. The Islah bloc is considered closer to the U.S. than the rival Binaa bloc, which espouses close ties with Iran.</s>Donald Trump's secret Christmas visit to Iraq was rumbled by a plane spotter in Sheffield.

As Air Force One headed to the Middle East on the unannounced mission Alan Meloy looked out of his kitchen window and noticed a jet trail in the sky over northern England.

Mr Meloy, an IT project manager, said: "I could see a trail coming towards me and thought 'Let's have a look at what's on the end of that'.

"Then I looked through a viewfinder and thought this is worth photographing. It's not just a normal airliner."

He immediately recognised the aircraft as a Boeing VC-25.

There are only two in the world and they are used to carry the US president. When the president is on board the call sign for the...</s>Al Asad Airbase, Iraq: President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he is prepared to wait as long as it takes to get $5 billion from taxpayers for his US-Mexico border wall, a demand that has triggered a partial shutdown of the federal government that is now in its fifth day.

With no immediate end to the shutdown in sight, Trump made his remarks during a surprise visit to Iraq and blamed the shutdown on Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who was expected to become speaker of the US House of Representatives on 3 January.

Trump had previously said he was prepared for a lengthy shutdown and when asked on Wednesday how long he would wait to get what he wants, he said, “Whatever it takes.”

“Nancy is calling the shots,” said the Republican president, suggesting that her opposition to his demand for wall funding had to do with Pelosi’s need for votes to become speaker.

“The American public is demanding a wall,” Trump said while on the ground at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq.

During a televised 11 December meeting with Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, Trump had said he would be “proud to shut down the government for border security” but has since shifted the blame to Democrats.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised Mexico would pay for his proposed wall. After Mexico repeatedly refused to do so, he began seeking US taxpayer funding for the wall, which he sees as vital to controlling illegal immigration.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in late November found that improved border security was a top-three priority for only about 31% of Americans surveyed.

Even with both chambers of Congress and the White House under Republican control for the past two years, former real estate developer Trump has not gained full funding for his wall.

Democrats and some Republicans view it as a costly, unneeded and ineffective project, but some Republicans support the idea and back Trump’s demand for $5 billion in partial funding.

Following weeks of failed talks between Trump and congressional leaders, parts of the US government shut down on Saturday, affecting about 800,000 employees of the Departments of Homeland Security, Transportation and other agencies.

Most of the federal government, which directly employs almost 4 million people, is unaffected. The Defense Department and other key agencies are fully funded through 30 September.

Congress was scheduled to reconvene after a holiday break on Thursday and resume debate on the matter.</s>Associated Press Two women in Iraq shop on Christmas Eve.

Iraq’s government approved a law to make Christmas a national holiday in the country.

The government announced the change Monday after the Iraqi Cabinet voted on an amendment to make the day an official holiday.

“Happy Christmas to our Christian citizens, all Iraqis and to all who are celebrating around the world,” the Iraqi government tweeted on Christmas Eve.

The @IraqiGovt announces Christmas Day to be an official holiday across Iraq. Happy Christmas to our Christian citizens, all Iraqis and to all who are celebrating around the world. — Government of Iraq - الحكومة العراقية (@IraqiGovt) December 24, 2018

The Christian population in the country has dropped considerably since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, CNN reports. Once more than a million, their numbers have dwindled to approximately 300,000 in the country.</s>President Trump greeted U.S. troops on an unannounced trip Wednesday to Iraq, where he defended his decision to withdraw forces from neighboring Syria and declared that the Islamic State is “very nearly defeated” while making his first visit to a conflict zone as commander in chief.

The president used his visit to al-Asad Air Base to amplify his call to draw down the U.S. presence in foreign wars and assert his personal influence over the military at a moment of tremendous turmoil at the Pentagon.

After months of public pressure for him to spend time with troops deployed to conflicts in the Middle East and Central Asia, Trump touched down at the joint U.S.-Iraqi base west of Baghdad after a secret flight from Washington.

Accompanied by first lady Melania Trump, the president sounded a triumphant note as he addressed U.S. service members on the day after Christmas. “We’re no longer the suckers, folks,” he said. And he warned that he was committed to withdrawing troops from foreign wars even when his administration’s experts object.

“The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world,” Trump said. “It’s not fair when the burden is all on us, the United States.”

After a briefing with military and diplomatic leaders on the ground, Trump strongly defended his decision to pull out of Syria. But he said he had no plans to withdraw American forces from Iraq, which he said the United States could use as a staging ground in the heart of the Middle East from which to combat Iran, or someday reenter Syria.

“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,” Trump said. “But it’s time to get our soldiers out.”

[A tumultuous week began with a phone call between Trump and the Turkish president]

Trump told reporters traveling with him that he would deny any request from generals to extend the U.S. operation in Syria, where roughly 2,000 troops are deployed.

“They said again, recently, ‘Can we have more time?’ ” Trump said of U.S. generals. “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.”

Trump’s sudden decision last week to withdraw troops from Syria led Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy to the global coalition fighting the Islamic State, to resign in protest.

Trump, who spent the holiday at the White House amid a partial federal government shutdown, departed Joint Base Andrews near Washington aboard Air Force One at 12:06 a.m. Wednesday. He flew in the dark of night in an attempt to preserve operational security.

Trump’s cover risked being blown by eagle-eyed social media users. A Twitter user in Germany posted that he had tracked an aircraft that could be Air Force One, while a British-based Flickr user later posted a photo of a plane bearing the presidential aircraft’s blue-and-white color scheme flying through clear skies over Yorkshire.

[Trump’s Iraq visit prompts concern over operational security]

After an 11-hour flight, the president and first lady landed at al-Asad Air Base at 7:16 p.m. local time. Trump was scheduled to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, but a face-to-face meeting was canceled for security and logistical reasons, so the two men spoke by phone, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.

Trump traveled with a small group of journalists, who were ordered for security reasons not to report that he was in Iraq until he had finished delivering his remarks to the troops, roughly three hours into his visit to the base.

Asked why he decided to visit Iraq, Trump told reporters: “It’s a place that I’ve been talking about for many years. And many, many years, before it started, I was talking about it, as a civilian.”

The president added, “I want to come and pay my respects, most importantly, to the great soldiers, great troopers we have here.”

Although Trump initially supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he later criticized the effort. He was also critical of President Barack Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, saying the move created the Islamic State.

The unannounced visit continues a holiday tradition followed by past presidents.

Obama visited Afghanistan four times as president, most recently in 2014, and made a trip to Iraq shortly after his 2009 inauguration.

George W. Bush made a surprise Thanksgiving visit to troops in Iraq after the invasion in 2003 and traveled back three times as president. Bill Clinton visited troops in Bosnia in 1996 and spent Thanksgiving with troops in Kosovo in 1999, while George H.W. Bush spent Thanksgiving with service members in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield in 1990 and New Year’s with troops in Somalia in 1993.

Although Trump had previously addressed U.S. troops stationed overseas, including in Italy, Japan and South Korea, he had drawn criticism for not having visited those deployed to combat zones.

Vice President Pence visited Afghanistan on Dec. 22, 2017, to address troops and meet with commanders at Bagram air base near Kabul.

Al-Asad Air Base is northwest of Ramadi, a city that the Islamic State captured before U.S.-backed Iraqi forces retook the area.

Trump said he considered the safety risks in making his first trip to a war zone.

“I had concerns for the institution of the presidency,” he told reporters. “Not for myself, personally. I had concerns for the first lady, I will tell you. But if you would have seen what we had to go through, with the darkened plane, with all windows closed, with no lights on whatsoever, anywhere — pitch black. I’ve never seen it. I’ve been in many airplanes — all types and shapes and sizes. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“So did I have a concern?” he added. “Yeah, I had a concern.”

[‘A rogue presidency’: The era of containing Trump is over]

In his speech to troops, Trump criticized their commanders, saying they had failed to meet the deadlines he set for withdrawal from Syria and other nations. “The men and women that serve are entitled to clear objectives and the confidence that when those objectives are met they can come home and be with their families,” he said.

The president also told a number of falsehoods to the troops during his speech. He said that he had given the troops a 10 percent pay raise and that the forces had not received a pay raise in more than 10 years. The sizable pay raise Trump authorized earlier this year, however, amounted to 2.6 percent, not 10 percent, and troops have received a pay raise every year for decades.

While presidents traditionally leave politics alone during holiday visits to the troops or talks to the armed forces, Trump did not shy away from his political talking points, hitting congressional Democrats for refusing to agree to fund construction of a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and not wanting to spend more on defense.

For Trump, the war-zone visit was a chance to momentarily escape the growing peril for his presidency and generate images of himself acting as the commander in chief, complete with a bomber jacket.

Trump and the first lady mingled with uniformed service members at a base dining facility that was decorated for Christmas with foil balls, twinkling lights and snowmen made of stacked tires painted white. The president stopped to sign several “Make America Great Again” hats that service members brought, and at one point he autographed an embroidered patch that read “TRUMP 2020.”

Kyu Lee said that after he told Trump he was the chaplain for SEAL Team Five, the president responded, “Hey, in that case, let’s take a picture.”

Trump’s speech to troops had the feel of one of his campaign rallies. Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” played as the service members awaited his arrival, and Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” played when the president strode on stage. Troops chanted, “USA! USA!,” and Trump told them: “At ease! Let’s have a good time.”

The feel-good atmosphere of Trump’s visit belied the pitched tension in Washington between the president and the Defense Department.

Mattis tendered his resignation last Thursday over Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria and draw down numbers in Afghanistan, in addition to other differences. Although Mattis planned to leave in February, Trump on Sunday dismissed him early, demanding that the retired Marine Corps general leave the Pentagon by year’s end.

Mattis and other top advisers had cautioned Trump not to order a precipitous withdrawal from Syria, where the 2,000 U.S. troops enabled a Kurdish-led militia to roll back the self-declared caliphate of the Islamic State.

Trump has not said anything in the past week about the U.S. presence in Iraq, where about 5,000 American troops remain, assisting Iraqi government forces and Kurdish peshmerga fighters in the north in the effort to secure the nation from the threat of the Islamic State. U.S. forces reentered Iraq in 2014 after the Islamic State established its self-declared caliphate in Syria and swept through Iraq, reaching the outskirts of the capital, Baghdad.

[Trump forces Mattis out two months early, names Shanahan acting defense secretary]

Trump has long been critical of the war in Afghanistan, which has stretched on for more than 17 years, becoming the longest U.S. war.

He directed the Defense Department to withdraw nearly half of the more than 14,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan, U.S. officials said last week, despite warnings from many of his senior advisers and military officials that the move would invite chaos and terrorism.

Top U.S. officials have warned that absent a peace deal with the Taliban, Afghanistan could collapse and descend into further turmoil after a precipitous U.S. withdrawal.

But as he visited Iraq, Trump bemoaned U.S. commitments overseas.

“We are spread out all over the world,” the president said. “We are in countries most people haven’t even heard about. Frankly, it’s ridiculous.”

Anne Gearan and Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.</s>AL-ASAD AIRBASE, Iraq — President Donald Trump made an unannounced visit to Iraq on Wednesday, leaving behind a partially shuttered U.S. government to greet American troops helping hold off extremists in a country where thousands of Americans died during the recent war.

It comes a week after Trump stunned his national security advisers by announcing that he would withdraw U.S. troops from neighboring Syria where they have been fighting Islamic State militants. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis abruptly resigned following the announcement, and Trump’s decision rattled allies around the world, including in Iraq.

Trump’s trip was shrouded in secrecy. Air Force One flew overnight from Washington, landing at an airbase west of Baghdad under the cover of darkness Wednesday evening. It is his first visit with troops stationed in a troubled region.

Fifteen years after the 2003 invasion, the U.S. still has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq supporting the government as it continues the fight against remaining pockets of resistance by the Islamic State group. IS has lost a significant amount of territory in Iraq and Syria but is still seen as a threat.

Trump, who speaks often about his support for the U.S. military, had faced criticism for not yet visiting U.S. troops stationed in harm’s way as he comes up on his two-year mark in office. He told The Associated Press in an interview in October that he “will do that at some point, but I don’t think it’s overly necessary.” He later began to signal that such a troop visit was in the offing.

Trump had planned to spend Christmas at his private club in Florida, but stayed behind in Washington due to the shutdown. It’s unclear whether his trip to Iraq was added after it became apparent that the government would be shut down indefinitely due to a stalemate between Trump and congressional Democrats over the president’s demand for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Adding to the tumult, the stock market has been experiencing heavy losses over concerns about a slowing global economy, Trump’s trade war with China and the president’s public slamming of the Federal Reserve and its chairman over interest rate hikes by the independent agency.

Trump’s visit comes at a time when his Middle East policy is in flux. He went against the views of his top national security advisers in announcing the Syria withdrawal, a decision that risks creating a vacuum for extremists to thrive.

There are dire implications in particular for neighboring Iraq. The Iraqi government now has control of all the country’s cities, towns and villages after fighting its last urban battles against IS in December 2017. But its political, military and economic situation remains uncertain, and the country continues to experience sporadic bombings, kidnappings and assassinations, which most people attribute to IS.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi recently said Iraqi troops could deploy into Syria to protect Iraq from threats across its borders. Iraq keeps reinforcements along its frontier to guard against infiltration by IS militants, who hold a pocket of territory along the Euphrates River.

Trump campaigned for office on a platform of ending U.S. involvement in foreign trouble spots, such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Syria decision will ultimately affect all of the approximately 2,000 troops deployed in the war-torn country. The Pentagon is also said to be developing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 American troops still serving in Afghanistan.

During the presidential campaign, Trump blamed Democrat Hillary Clinton for the rise of IS, due to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011 during her tenure as secretary of state.

President George W. Bush is the one who set the 2011 withdrawal date as part of an agreement with the Iraqi government to gradually shrink the U.S. footprint and slowly hand off security responsibilities to the government and Iraqi security forces.

His successor, President Barack Obama, wanted to leave a residual force in Iraq to help the government manage ongoing security challenges. But he ultimately went ahead with the scheduled pullout in 2011 after Iraqi’s political leaders rejected terms the U.S. sought for legal protections for the U.S. troops that would have remained.

Two of Trump’s recent predecessors visited Iraq early in their terms.

Bush visited Iraq in November 2003, about eight months after that conflict began. Due to security concerns, Bush waited until 2006 to make his first visit to Afghanistan.

Obama visited Iraq in April 2009, the first year of his eight years in office, as part of an overseas tour. He visited Afghanistan in 2010.

Vice President Mike Pence visited Afghanistan in December 2017, not long after Trump outlined a strategy to break the stalemate in America’s longest war. Pence met with Afghan leaders and visited with U.S. troops stationed in the country. Trump has not visited Afghanistan.</s>In an apparent response to increasing questions about why he had not yet visited service members in combat zones, President Donald Trump on Wednesday made an unannounced trip to Iraq.

“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,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced via Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.

Trump during his Thanksgiving golfing vacation hinted he could soon visit a combat zone, but the White House had not made public any plans. As has become normal operating procedure for such visits, the White House disclosed his whereabouts only after Air Force One safely landed in Iraq.

The plane apparently left Joint Base Andrews at about midnight, passing over the U.K. and then Hungary en route to a middle-of-the-night landing in Iraq, according to amateur photographers and hobbyist trackers of military aircraft.

Trump boasted during his 2016 campaign that he was “the most militaristic” person ever, and would be the best candidate for service members — despite his history of having avoided the Vietnam War through education deferments and then a medical exemption for bone spurs in his heels. He joked in 1997 that his “personal Vietnam” was avoiding sexually transmitted diseases from all the women he slept with in the 1970s, saying on the Howard Stern radio show, “I feel like a great and very brave soldier.”

Trump went nearly two years without visiting a combat zone — something previous presidents did as a matter of course. Barack Obama visited Afghanistan within a few months of taking office in 2009, and George W. Bush visited troops in Baghdad over Thanksgiving in 2003. One former White House official told HuffPost on condition of anonymity that Trump had not wanted to go because of fears for his safety.

Trump has made repeated false claims about his accomplishments for service members. For instance, he has regularly claimed that he was responsible for the passage of a law that lets veterans use private doctors if they cannot get prompt care at Veterans Affairs clinics and hospitals. He has also claimed that his military budget is the largest ever. In fact, the Veterans Choice Act was passed under Obama, not Trump, and Obama had bigger military budgets in 2010 and 2011, even without accounting for inflation.

This past November, when Trump visited France for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, he chose not to visit an American military cemetery or any other war memorial because it was raining. Instead, he stayed indoors at the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Paris, even as other foreign leaders braved the elements to visit memorial sites. He did visit a different cemetery on the day he left Paris, but upon his return to Washington, Trump failed to visit Arlington National Cemetery on the observed Veterans’ Day holiday.

And to cap it off, Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned last week over Trump’s hasty decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Syria. In his resignation letter, Mattis criticized Trump’s antagonistic relationship with longtime allies but apparent friendship with adversaries. Trump on Sunday effectively fired Mattis by announcing via Twitter that Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan would replace Mattis on Jan. 1 as acting secretary.

Mattis’ resignation has triggered sharp criticism even from Republicans who ordinarily support Trump, both in Congress and more generally. Trump’s overall standing with service members was barely above water even before Mattis’ departure.

According to an October poll by The Military Times, Trump is viewed unfavorably by 43 percent of active-duty service members surveyed and favorably by 44 percent. Further, 31 percent view him very unfavorably, compared with almost 24 percent who view him very favorably.</s>AL-ASAD AIRBASE, Iraq — In a surprise trip to Iraq, President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria where they have been helping battle Islamic State militants.

“We’re no longer the suckers, folks,” Trump told American servicemen and women at a base in western Iraq. “We’re respected again as a nation.”

Trump said it’s because of U.S. military gains that he can withdraw 2,000 forces from Syria. During his first visit to a troubled region, Trump also said he has no plans to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.

“I made it clear from the beginning that our mission in Syria was to strip ISIS of its military strongholds,” Trump told troops clad in fatigues at al-Asad Airbase west of Baghdad.

“Eight years ago, we went there for three months and we never left,” he said. “Now, we’re doing it right and we’re going to finish it off.”
• Turkey ‘determined’ to drive out Syrian Kurdish forces and coordinate U.S. forces withdrawal
• Twitter after midnight: Trump defends decision to withdraw from Syria as Republicans speak out
• ‘We have defeated ISIS’: Trump has ordered full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, official says

He said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to take out “any remnants” of ISIS left in Syria. The U.S. presence in Syria was not meant to be “open-ended,” he said, adding that other wealthy nations should pay for rebuilding Syria.

“The nations of the region must step up and take more responsibility for their future,” said Trump, who said there would be a “strong, deliberate and orderly withdrawal” of U.S. forces from Syria.

Trump’s trip to Iraq came a week after he stunned his national security advisers by announcing the U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria.

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis abruptly resigned following the announcement, and Trump’s decision rattled allies around the world, including in Iraq.

Trump’s trip was shrouded in secrecy. Air Force One flew overnight from Washington, landing at an airbase west of Baghdad under the cover of darkness Wednesday evening. It is his first visit with troops stationed in a troubled region.

Fifteen years after the 2003 invasion, the U.S. still has more than 5,000 troops in Iraq supporting the government as it continues the fight against remaining pockets of resistance by the Islamic State group. ISIS has lost a significant amount of territory in Iraq and Syria but is still seen as a threat.

Trump, who speaks often about his support for the U.S. military, had faced criticism for not yet visiting U.S. troops stationed in harm’s way as he comes up on his two-year mark in office. He told The Associated Press in an interview in October that he “will do that at some point, but I don’t think it’s overly necessary.” He later began to signal that such a troop visit was in the offing.

Trump had planned to spend Christmas at his private club in Florida, but stayed behind in Washington due to the shutdown. It’s unclear whether his trip to Iraq was added after it became apparent that the government would be shut down indefinitely due to a stalemate between Trump and congressional Democrats over the president’s demand for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Adding to the tumult, the stock market has been experiencing heavy losses over concerns about a slowing global economy, Trump’s trade war with China and the president’s public slamming of the Federal Reserve and its chairman over interest rate hikes by the independent agency.

Trump’s visit comes at a time when his Middle East policy is in flux. He went against the views of his top national security advisers in announcing the Syria withdrawal, a decision that risks creating a vacuum for extremists to thrive.

There are dire implications in particular for neighbouring Iraq. The Iraqi government now has control of all the country’s cities, towns and villages after fighting its last urban battles against ISIS in December 2017. But its political, military and economic situation remains uncertain, and the country continues to experience sporadic bombings, kidnappings and assassinations, which most people attribute to IS.

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi recently said Iraqi troops could deploy into Syria to protect Iraq from threats across its borders. Iraq keeps reinforcements along its frontier to guard against infiltration by ISIS militants, who hold a pocket of territory along the Euphrates River.

Trump campaigned for office on a platform of ending U.S. involvement in foreign trouble spots, such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Syria decision will ultimately affect all of the approximately 2,000 troops deployed in the war-torn country. The Pentagon is also said to be developing plans to withdraw up to half of the 14,000 American troops still serving in Afghanistan.

During the presidential campaign, Trump blamed Democrat Hillary Clinton for the rise of ISIS, due to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011 during her tenure as secretary of state.

President George W. Bush is the one who set the 2011 withdrawal date as part of an agreement with the Iraqi government to gradually shrink the U.S. footprint and slowly hand off security responsibilities to the government and Iraqi security forces.

His successor, President Barack Obama, wanted to leave a residual force in Iraq to help the government manage ongoing security challenges. But he ultimately went ahead with the scheduled pullout in 2011 after Iraqi’s political leaders rejected terms the U.S. sought for legal protections for the U.S. troops that would have remained.

Two of Trump’s recent predecessors visited Iraq early in their terms.

Bush visited Iraq in November 2003, about eight months after that conflict began. Due to security concerns, Bush waited until 2006 to make his first visit to Afghanistan.

Obama visited Iraq in April 2009, the first year of his eight years in office, as part of an overseas tour. He visited Afghanistan in 2010.

Vice-President Mike Pence visited Afghanistan in December 2017, not long after Trump outlined a strategy to break the stalemate in America’s longest war. Pence met with Afghan leaders and visited with U.S. troops stationed in the country. Trump has not visited Afghanistan.
U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump make an unannounced post-Christmas visit to troops at the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq, their first visit to a combat zone since taking office.