Trump blasts 'fabricated' Syria story, appears to confirm covert CIA program
By Derek Hawkins July 25 at 2:25 AM
President Trump lashed out at The Washington Post in a string of tweets Monday night, saying the newspaper had fabricated the facts about his decision to end a covert program aiding Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad, Trump wrote in one tweet.
Trump appeared to be referring to a Post story last week on the
phasing out of a covert Obama administration program in which the CIA armed and trained moderate Syrian rebels battling forces loyal to Assad in the countrys civil war. The Post reported that the Russian government had long opposed the program, seeing it as an assault on its interests. Trump decided to scrap the program nearly a month ago after meeting with his CIA director and national security adviser ahead of a July 7 meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to The Posts story.
The White House did not dispute the story when it ran last week. In remarks at a national security forum in Colorado on Friday, Gen. Tony Thomas, head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, appeared to confirm that the program had been shut down, then attempted to walk back his comments, as
Politico reported.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/25/trump-blasts-fabricated-syria-story-appears-to-confirm-covert-cia-program/?utm_term=.3549093c3ae1&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1