Andrew Milburn, a US Marine colonel who retired in March as the deputy commander of US special operations forces in the Middle East, tells NBCNews that 'Trump definitely could have stopped' the Turkish invasion of northern Syria from happening.
by threatening consequences. Trump ordered a partial U.S. withdrawal after an Oct. 6 phone call with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Ergogan. On Sunday, Esper said Trump had directed all U.S. troops to leave northern Syria.
But Milburn's comments are particularly resonant coming from someone who risked his life with Kurdish militias on the battlefield against ISIS. But even leaving that issue aside, he said, from a geopolitical standpoint the withdrawal makes no sense. Before he became deputy commander of special operations command in Tampa, Florida, Milburn, who holds a law degree, commanded U.S. and allied forces in Iraq, where he helped lead the effort to take back Iraqi territory seized by ISIS.
Experts who defend his decision point out that the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces had connections to the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has fought a decades-long insurgency against Turkey and has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.
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