President Biden is expected to announce Wednesday his decision to begin the drawdown of U.S. forces before May 1 and the plan to have all the troops out of the country by September 11, at the latest.

According to a senior administration official, Mr. Biden has made the determination that the best path forward to protect American interests is to end the war in Afghanistan to address the global threat picture of today that includes China, pandemics, and terrorism in places across the globe.

The U.S. went into Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks to prevent terrorists from launching more attacks from Afghanistan. The Biden administration has determined that al Qaeda does not currently possess an external plotting capability, according to the official.

There will be counterterrorism capabilities that remain in the region to counter the potential reemergence of al Qaeda and hold the Taliban to its commitment that al Qaeda will not grow its capabilities.

An Afghan government official texted a response to the news: “Well we now have to charter our own way forward.” The Afghanistan government is concerned about the withdrawal of U.S. troops; Afghan National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib predicts civil war will ensue.

The Biden administration has had to contend with a May 1 deadline negotiated by the Trump administration with the Taliban last year in a deal that called for a reduction of violence. The deadline of September 11, according to the official, is not “conditions-based.”

The Taliban has threatened to harm U.S. troops if there is a break from the May 1 deadline. The official said the Taliban knows any violence against U.S. forces will prompt “a forceful response.”

The U.S. has been consulting with NATO allies and will coordinate the withdrawal of NATO forces within the U.S. timeframe. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are traveling to Brussels on Wednesday.

The Biden administration is still pushing for the diplomatic process to find a political settlement between the Taliban and the Afghan government. The next peace negotiations will take place in Istanbul later this month, and the senior administration official said the Biden administration is committed to ensuring that women are both participating in the talks as well as the government.

The Washington Post first reported the president’s plans.

Some Republicans were vocal in their criticism. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor that Mr. Biden was making a “grave mistake.”

“Precipitously withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a grave mistake. It is retreat in the face of an enemy that has not yet been vanquished and abdication of American leadership,” McConnell said.

GOP Senator Jim Inhofe called Mr. Biden’s decision “outrageous,” and Senator Joni Ernst said that it was “concerning.”

“I think a random withdrawal just because you’re celebrating an anniversary is not the right decision,” Ernst said.

Republican Congressman Michael McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that he was “shocked and extremely concerned” by reports of Mr. Biden’s decision.

“This premature withdrawal shows a complete disregard for the realities on the ground and will not only put Afghans at risk but endanger the lives of U.S. citizens at home and abroad. I have urgently requested details on this decision and strongly urge the president to reconsider,” McCaul said in a statement. The congressman had previously pushed back against the Trump administration’s decision to slash the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Some Democrats, too, responded to the news of the withdrawal with some skepticism. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters on Tuesday that he wants “to hear the administration’s rationale” for pulling out of Afghanistan.

“I just am concerned that after so much blood and national treasure that we don’t lose what we were seeking to achieve,” Menendez said. He added that he will “certainly will not be supportive of any assistance to Afghanistan if there is backsliding on civil society [and] the rights that women have achieved.”

“If the Taliban ultimately doesn’t keep its obligations, then there will be consequences and one of them will be that there will be no money flowing. So I don’t know how they will rebuild the country,” Menendez said.

Democratic Senator Jack Reed expressed unease over the decision, saying that the U.S. must “maintain a presence for regional stability.”

“This should be seen as transitional, not as closure,” Reed said.

But other lawmakers welcomed the news. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement that Mr. Biden was making “the brave and right decision.”

“We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to every U.S. and coalition service member who has served in Afghanistan since 2001, and we will never forget the over 2,300 U.S. service members who gave their lives there. We also remember the over 100,000 Afghan civilians who have been killed in this war,” Sanders said. “The United States must remain committed to diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian support for Afghanistan even as we bring this military intervention to an end.”

The post Biden to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by 9/11 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

It is unclear at this point when the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates will be complete, though several officials have said the probe is nearing its end.

TRUMP ACCUSES SCHIFF OF ‘UNLIMITED PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT’ AMID NEW PROBE

But the Mueller report will not mark the end of Russia investigations. House Democrats have ramped up their own efforts to investigate the president on matters related to Russia, his personal finances, his relationships and communications with foreign officials, and more.

The House Financial Services Committee, led by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is the latest panel to join in on the investigations. Axios reported Wednesday that the committee will coordinate with the House Intelligence Committee on money-laundering inquiries — while the House Foreign Affairs Committee is also involved.

The details emerged after House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., already announced a sweeping new probe into the president’s foreign business dealings and Russian election meddling.

Committee Democrats alleged last year that Trump’s financial records with Deutsche Bank and Russia may reveal a “form of compromise” that “needs to be exposed.” Schiff has long maintained there had to be some reason that the German banking giant, which has what he called a “history of laundering Russian money,” was willing to work with the Trump Organization.

The same committee has also floated a potential subpoena for notes or testimony from the interpreter in meetings between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin—a move that would dramatically escalate Democrats’ investigations into the Trump administration. Should Schiff choose to subpoena the interpreter, it would likely trigger a major confrontation between the executive and legislative branches concerning discussions with foreign leaders.

Reports last month suggested that Trump took possession of the notes from the interpreter after his summit with Putin in Hamburg in 2017, and instructed the individual not to discuss what had taken place in the meetings with Putin with any other administration officials. But the president’s decision to ask the interpreter not to share details of his meetings with foreign leaders with other members of the administration could have been a response to prior leaks of private conversations with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto in 2017.

TRUMP CALLS SCHIFF ‘POLITICAL HACK’ AS DEMS OPEN NEW RUSSIA PROBE, SEND TRANSCRIPTS TO MUELLER

Schiff posed the idea of subpoenaing the interpreter in 2018, but again, last month, suggested they could use subpoena power to obtain the notes and testimony.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee also has directed resources from their former subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation to one focused on investigations and oversight. Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said that it “made sense” to have a panel like this when there are “so many questionable activities of this Administration vis-à-vis foreign policy.”

Engel also pointed to Trump’s summit with Putin in Helsinki, Finland in 2018.

“It’s been many months since Helsinki, and we still don’t know what Putin and Trump talked about,” Engel said, adding that a new panel could also look at the “business interests of the president” and how his financial dealings with certain countries in the Middle East and Russia have “affected what he’s done in foreign policy.”

WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES ADDITIONS TO PRESS SHOP IN ANTICIPATION OF SUBPOENAS AND HEARING INVITES FROM HOUSE DEMS

Meanwhile, sources told Fox News that the House Judiciary Committee has staffed up with former Obama chief ethics counsel Norm Eisen helping Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., conduct the panel’s oversight of Mueller’s Russia investigation and the Justice Department. The Judiciary Committee also would lead the charge on any potential impeachment proceedings.

And the House Oversight Committee, while not leading a full investigation, had invited former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to testify before the panel. He accepted, but then postponed the public hearing citing alleged threats made by Trump and his legal team. Cohen was also invited by Schiff to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, but his hearing has yet to be scheduled.

On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed Cohen for a deposition before their panel. That same committee, chaired by Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Ranking Member Mark Warner, D-Va., has been probing whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. But this week, NBC News reported that the committee has found “no evidence” of collusion.

While the timeline of Mueller’s investigation remains to be seen, Trump’s former attorney John Dowd ripped the entire probe as a “terrible waste of time” on Wednesday in an interview with ABC News.

BETWEEN ACTING AG WHITAKER AND HOUSE DEMS, TRUMP-MUELLER HEARING TURNS TESTY

“I will be shocked, if anything regarding the president is made public, other than, ‘we’re done,’” Dowd said.

“I know exactly what he has. I know exactly what every witness said, what every document said. I know exactly what he asked. And I know what the conclusion [is],” Dowd said, again blasting the probe as “one of the greatest frauds this country’s ever seen.”

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“I’m just shocked that Bob Mueller didn’t call it that way and say, ‘I’m being used.’ I would have done that,” Dowd added.

Fox News’ Gregg Re and Liam Quinn contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-democrats-plan-sweeping-trump-probes-after-mueller-report

The post House Democrats planning expansive Trump probes, even after Mueller report first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

WASHINGTON — Russia typically brushes off new U.S. sanctions. Not this time.

The Trump administration announcement of export restrictions in response to accusations Moscow used a nerve agent to poison a former Russian spy in Britain sent the ruble tumbling to a two-year low and drew a stern warning from its prime minister. While the initial sanctions may have a limited impact, a second batch expected within months could hit the Russian economy much harder and send already tense relations into a tailspin.

If sanctions are expanded even further to target Russia’s top state-controlled banks, freezing their dollar transactions — as proposed under legislation introduced in the Senate this month — it would amount to a “declaration of economic war,” Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.

So much for President Donald Trump’s hopes for better relations with Moscow.

On his watch, the U.S. has imposed a slew of sanctions on Russia for human rights abuses, meddling in the U.S. election and Russian military aggression in Ukraine and Syria. For the most part, they have punished Russian officials and associates of President Vladimir Putin rather than targeting broad economic sectors.

In 2014, both the U.S. and European Union introduced sanctions that restricted Russia’s access to global financial markets and to equipment for new energy projects. Those measures were punishing, but the sanctions announced by the Trump administration this past week could be even worse.

The restrictions were triggered under U.S. law on chemical weapons following a formal U.S. determination that Russia used the Novichok nerve agent to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury in March.

The first tranche, due to take effect Aug. 22, will deny export licenses to Russia for the purchase of many items with national security implications. Existing sanctions already prohibit the export of most military and security-related items, but now the ban will be extended to goods such as gas turbine engines, electronics and calibration equipment that were previously allowed on a case-by-case basis. The State Department said it could potentially affect hundreds of millions of dollars in trade.

“It’s a significant step, but not an overwhelming one,” said Daniel Fried, a veteran State Department official who served as chief U.S. coordinator for sanctions policy until he retired last year.

The penny could drop, though, in three months’ time.

Russia has 90 days to “provide assurances” that it will not use chemical weapons in the future and allow inspections. If Russia does not comply, Trump will be obligated to impose a second set of sanctions, applying restrictions on at least three from a menu of options: opposing multilateral bank assistance to Russia, broad restrictions on exports and imports, downgrading diplomatic relations, prohibiting air carrier landing rights and barring U.S. banks from making loans to the Russian government. That could do significantly more economic harm and have a lasting, destabilizing effect on the currency and stock markets.

Senior Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Nikonov said a second set of sanctions may be inevitable and predicted it would pitch relations to new low. The relationship is already routinely described as at its worst since the Cold War.

“They are demanding that Russia (accepts) an obligation to refrain from any further use of chemical and bacteriological weapons, which amounts to our acknowledgement that we have used it. But we haven’t,” he said.

Things could get even worse if the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, which a bipartisan group of senators introduced Aug. 2, makes its way through Congress. It would target Russia’s state-controlled banks and freeze their operations in dollars, which would deal a heavy blow to the Russian economy. The prospects for the legislation becoming law remain uncertain.

Medvedev warned the U.S. that such a move would cross a red line and would warrant a Russian response by economic, political or “other means” he did not specify. His tough tone was a departure from past nonchalance from Putin and his lieutenants over the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy.

Vladimir Vasilyev, a researcher with the Institute of the U.S. and Canada, a government-funded Moscow think tank, said U.S.-Russian ties were now approaching “the point of no return with no prospect for improvement” in sight.

Fried said that in addition to uncertainty over sanctions, Moscow’s strong response this time is likely also being fueled by larger inconsistencies in U.S. policy toward Russia. While Trump has hankered for closer ties with Putin, the government he leads has been far less accommodating.

“Whatever deal the Russians had or thought they had or thought they could get from President Donald Trump, they’re not able to get it from Trump’s administration,” Fried said.

The State Department denied inconsistency in U.S. policy and maintained that sanctions were aimed at encouraging improved behavior from Russia. “We’d like to have a better relationship with the Russian government, recognizing that we have a lot of areas of mutual concern,” spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

Congress has a less diplomatic view.

Trump has repeatedly come under fire from lawmakers, including from his own Republican Party, for his conciliatory statements on Russia, particularly at his joint press conference with Putin at their summit in Helsinki last month where he appeared to doubt U.S. intelligence conclusions that Russia intervened in the 2016 election.

Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was among lawmakers who welcomed the U.S. sanctions announced this week. “It’s critical that we use every tool at our disposal to confront Putin’s use of chemical weapons, as well as his efforts to undermine our democracy,” the Republican from California said.

___

Isachenkov reported from Moscow.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/newest-us-sanctions-against-russia-hit-an-economic-nerve/2018/08/13/c701fd48-9eae-11e8-a3dd-2a1991f075d5_story.html?noredirect=on

The post Newest US sanctions against Russia hit an economic nerve first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

State sponsor of terrorism Iran has reportedly erected another permanent base in Syria capable of bombing Israel, considered Tehran’s public enemy number one, according to Fox News, citing Western intelligence sources and satellite images.

Last December, Israel reportedly destroyed a similar base, warning Tehran against building any military installations. Israel and Syria share a border.

Fox News reports:

Iran has built another permanent military base outside Syria’s capital city complete with hangers used to store missiles capable of hitting all of Israel, according to Western intelligence sources.

Exclusive satellite images from ImageSat International obtained by Fox News show what is believed to be the new Iranian base, eight miles northwest of Damascus, operated by the Quds Force—the special operations arm of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).  The photos show two new white hangars, each roughly 30 yards by 20 yards, used to store short- and medium-range missiles.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has sanctioned the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

During an event sponsored by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, urged the Trump administration to “push back” against Iran-allied Shiite fighters destabilizing Iraq and Syria, namely the IRGC.

The congressman, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has introduced bipartisan legislation to impose sanctions on Iranian-backed Shiite militias in the Middle East.

Iran has deployed thousands of Shiite fighters, including members of the terrorist group Hezbollah, to fight on behalf of the Russian-backed dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Although U.S. Gen. Joseph Votel, the top American commander in the Middle East and Afghanistan, told lawmakers this week that Tehran “remains the major threat” to regional stability, he also said, “Countering Iran is not one of the coalition’s missions in Syria.”

The primary focus of the estimated 2,000 American troops in Syria remains the destruction of ISIS.

During the FDD event on Wednesday, Melissa Dalton of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) who recently traveled to Syria with Gen. Votel, said there are still “some hardened cells” associated with ISIS in Syria.

Gen. Votel told lawmakers the group has lost “more than 98 percent” of its so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

He noted that Iran is “increasing” the number and “quality” of the ballistic missiles it is deploying to Syria.

The nuclear agreement reached in July 2015 has allowed Iran to “enhance” funding to proxy forces in the Middle East, pointed out the top American general.

Support from Iran and Russia have allowed Assad to remain in power and continue waging war.

The United States military and its Kurdish allies have recently been forced to repel an attack from troops loyal to the Iranian and Russian-backed Assad regime.

According to the Pentagon, U.S. troops will not hesitate to respond to an attack from Iran-allied militias in Syria.

Source: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/03/01/report-iran-builds-another-permanent-base-syria/

The post Report: Iran Builds Another Permanent Base in Syria first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster was on Capitol Hill Wednesday evening briefing top Republican lawmakers on the administration’s forthcoming announcement.

Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told reporters of the planned Friday speech.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has also been briefing key lawmakers on the administration’s plans for the agreement, and met with Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, today at the State Department, according to a congressional aide.

As ABC News has previously reported, President Trump is expected to “decertify” the Iran nuclear deal forged by the Obama administration and declare that it no longer serves U.S. national security interests.

That decision not to certify the agreement would give Congress 60 days to re-impose sanctions against Iran that were suspended in 2015 as part of the agreement.

Trump expected to ‘decertify’ Iran nuclear deal next week

What Trump’s top officials have said about the Iran deal

Trump could also ask Congress to impose additional non-nuclear sanctions — such as penalties against Iran’s ballistic missile program — on Iran, which would not end U.S. participation in the nuclear agreement. He could also ask lawmakers to amend the existing law requiring he re-certify Iran’s compliance with the agreement every 90 days.

Top officials on the Trump national security team, including Defense Secretary James Mattis, have said Iran has technically complied with the nuclear deal.
Republicans critical of the initial deal have urged the administration to enforce it.

“As flawed as the deal is, I believe we must now enforce the hell out of it,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said in a hearing Wednesday. “Let’s work with allies to make certain that international inspectors have better access to possible nuclear sites, and we should address the fundamental sunset shortcoming, as our allies have recognized.”

Former Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who helped craft and negotiate the agreement with Iran under President Obama, traveled to Capitol Hill Wednesday to brief House Democrats on the nuclear deal and the argument for keeping it in its current form.

ABC’s Ali Rogin contributed to this report.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-make-announcement-fate-iran-nuclear-deal-friday/story?id=50426538

The post Trump to make announcement on fate of Iran nuclear deal Friday first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.