Esper: Pentagon Not 'Discussing or Considering' Sending 14,000 New Troops to Middle East by Corey Dickstein – Stars & Stripes
The Pentagon will not send 14,000 new U.S. troops to the Middle East, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday, a day after a senior Defense Department official told lawmakers that more military forces could deploy to the region to counter Iran.
"As the Department [of Defense] has stated repeatedly, we were never discussing or considering sending 14,000 additional troops to the Middle East,” Esper said in the statement. “Reports of this are flat out wrong.”
The statement came nearly 24 hours after Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called for Esper to publicly clarify any Pentagon planning to increase U.S. forces in the Middle East. John Rood, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told Hawley during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Thursday that the Defense Department was monitoring threats from Iran and considering sending new forces to the region…