— If US Military Expelled from Iraq, Will Want Payment, Otherwise Sanctions
WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The following White House pool report transcription excerpts are the portions of President Donald Trump’s remarks to reporters aboard Air Force One returning to Washington Sunday night that were placed on the record:
POTUS pulled the pool in to his cabin at 6 pm for roughly 30 minutes, talking through the landing and going on and off the record.
Present in his cabin was Mick Mulvaney, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Robert O’Brien, Dan Scavino, Hogan Gidley.
Most of the talk was off the record but what follows is on the record.
Cultural sites:
“They’re allowed to kill our people. They’re allowed to torture and maim our people. they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural site?. It doesn’t work that way.”
Retaliation from Iran?
“If it happens it happens. If they do anything there will be major retaliation”
IRAQ (question unclear):
“So with Iraq, we’ve spent a lot of money in Iraq. I told you, Iraq, was the worst decision, going into the Middle East was the worst decision ever made in the history of our country, and I’ve said that publicly so I guess I can say that right now.going into the Middle East was the worst decision ever made in the history of our country, but we are there and they went into Iraq. Iraq, by the way, they didn’t knock down the World Trade Center. That’s been very nicely proven. But we went in and we’re there and we’re pulling out, pulling out of a lot of different areas. With Syria, I pulled out because I’m not going to guard his border. Why should I be guarding the border? They’ve got troops, let em guard, that border’s been under siege, for thousands of years they’ve been fighting on that border. We call it the safe zone, it’s really the opposite of the safe zone, many many people have been killed and by the way many people from Turkey have been killed, it’s a double.”
“We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it” (referring to the air base).
Parliament move in Iraq?
“We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.
“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis. We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”
“If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.