Saying his deal-breaking stance against a full withdrawal in Syria might have helped the U.S. keep troops there – and slow the pullout in Afghanistan – former Defense Secretary James Mattis will let the "historians" weigh his lasting impact on the Middle East and Afghanistan peace deal talks with Taliban leadership.
"I'll let the historians sort that out," Mattis told CBS's "Face the Nation." "I don't know what all went into the decision to reverse that call to pull everyone out, but I can't answer that."
Mattis, promoting his book "Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead," told host Margaret Brennan the Obama administration made a costly mistake with a full withdrawal in Iraq, and President Donald Trump has thus far avoided repeating that mistake.
"I think President Obama's administration had made the decision to leave Iraq despite what the intelligence community was telling us would happen: They were very clear that an al- Qaida-associated group would rise, that the Iraqi government, the Iraqi people, Iraqi nation was in a post-combat, prereconciliation phase," Mattis told Brennan.
"We needed to keep our influence there a little longer and draw down year by year, not draw everyone out at one time. The intelligence community was very clear. They forecasted the rise of a group – you and I know it as ISIS – and we should have taken their advice on board."
Mattis' comments come a day after President Trump pulled out of peace talks with Afghanistan and the Taliban.
"Can they be trusted?" Mattis asked, supporting the peace talks with the Taliban because "all wars eventually come to an end, and I salute efforts to try to end that war, no doubt." "You remember when we reduced nuclear weapons with Russia, we talked about 'trust, but verify.'
"In this case with this group, I think you want to verify then trust. We have asked them –demanded – that they break with al-Qaida since the Bush administration. They have refused to do so. They murdered 3,000 innocent people, citizens of 91 countries on 9/11. We should never forget that. The Taliban hid those people among them, refused to break with them, and have refused to this day to break."
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