The Pentagon revealed on Thursday that the US has more than double the amount of troops in Syria than the federal government had previously reported — and the larger force has been in place “for a while.”
Pentagon spokesperson Maj. General Patrick Ryder came clean about the shocking discrepancy in a Thursday press conference, acknowledging 2,000 troops — not 900 — are stationed in Syria, where rebels recently overthrew ex-President Bashar Al-Assad.
“We have been briefing you regularly that there are approximately 900 US troops deployed in Syria,” Ryder said.
“I learned today that in fact there are approximately 2,000 US troops in Syria,” the major general said sheepishly.
“As I understand it, and as it was explained to me, these additional forces are considered temporary rotational forces that deploy to meet shifting mission requirements, whereas the core 900 deployers are on longer term deployments,” the major general said, adding further context.
Those temporary forces tend to be on deployments that last somewhere between 30-to-90-days, though the spokesperson did not indicate when these temporary deployments began.
“I don’t have a specific date to provide,” Ryder said when asked by reporters when the increased deployment began, adding, “But my understanding is that it’s been for a while, so clearly before the fall of the Assad regime. So, yeah.”
When pressed for a time frame for the deployment by reporters, the spokesperson said “at least a matter of months.”
The forces were described as being predominantly US Army forces, “focused on the defeat of ISIS mission,” according to Ryder.
“As you know, many of our deployments will fluctuate from time to time, but given that this number is significantly higher than what we’ve been briefing, I wanted to let you know as soon as I found out this information,” Ryder said, highlighting that it was “his decision” to come forward with the accurate numbers.
Only vague reasons were given as to the purpose for the ballooned number of troops that the Joint Chiefs’ spokesperson assured reporters the feds were not claiming were part of normal RIP/TOA — “relief in place” — which is part of standard operating procedure.
“I’m sure a certain element of that would be RIP/TOA, but a lot of those forces are going to have already been operating there, you know, coming in and out and doing those kinds of things,” Ryder clarified to reporters.
Earlier this month, Assad became yet another refugee of the beleaguered nation, fleeing the country he ruled with an iron fist for friendlier pastures in Russia following his deposition at the hands of rebel forces.
