WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement on Wednesday after reports that President Trump will pull the remaining 2,000 U.S. troops out of Syria. 

“America’s military presence in Syria has always been too little to make a decisive difference but just enough to prolong the fighting. Our half-hearted military commitment made no sense from the start - we went into this war without legal authorization or realistic objectives, and discounted the American people’s clear aversion to getting involved in another quagmire in the Middle East,” said Murphy. “This devastating civil war has since killed more than half a million people and forced millions more to flee their homes and seek safety and shelter abroad. The Trump administration’s policy of prolonging the violence in Syria while locking people inside and refusing to allow refugees to come to the United States is morally repugnant and has without a doubt made us less safe. I support withdrawing troops, but we must also rejoin a diplomatic process that the Trump administration has left to other powers, and we need a surge in humanitarian relief. That's the only way we can protect the Syrian people against a Turkish incursion or regime reprisals. Right now, the Trump administration has no Syria strategy - no military strategy, no diplomatic strategy, no humanitarian strategy. That's unconscionable.” 

Murphy has called on Congress to reclaim its war-making authority and debate a new Authorization for Use of Military Force. 

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