Pentagon scrambles to assemble Syria exit amid opposition
WASHINGTON — Military leaders were scrambling Thursday to devise a swift but safe departure of troops from Syria as outraged lawmakers appealed to President Donald Trump to reverse an abrupt withdrawal order that rattled Washington’s Kurdish allies and raised questions about America’s perceived reliability as a wartime partner.
Defense officials said U.S. airstrikes would continue until all the approximately 2,000 U.S. troops are out of Syria, but it was unclear whether the air campaign would then end. Officials said it might depend on whether France and other coalition partners keep ground troops in Syria after the Americans leave. A continued presence of allied troops working with local Syrians might compel the U.S. to contribute air cover.
The Pentagon offered no information about how the withdrawal will happen or how long it will take, apparently because they don’t know.
Two officials speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning said Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, will submit a comprehensive withdrawal plan to top Pentagon officials in coming days.
One official said military commanders are concerned that the pullout will leave their Syrian Kurdish allies in the lurch.
Dow sinks another 464 points as slowdown fears worsen
NEW YORK — Stocks went into another slide Thursday in what is shaping up as the worst December on Wall Street since the depths of the Great Depression, with prices dragged down by rising fears of a recession somewhere on the horizon.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 464 points, bringing its losses to more than 1,700 since last Friday. The broader S&P 500 index continued its slump, too, and is down 10.6 percent this month alone, with six days of trading to go.
“This is the classic shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later market,” said Scott Wren, senior global equity strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
Stocks usually end the year with a flourish, and December is usually the best month of the year for the market. But this month has been dismal. Without a decent rally, this could be the worst December since 1931.
The S&P 500 is almost 16 percent below the peak it reached in late September. It is on track for its biggest one-month loss since February 2009 and its first losing year in a decade. (The index took tiny losses in 2011 and 2015 but ended those years higher once dividends were included.)
Mattis leaving as Pentagon chief after clashes with Trump
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is stepping down from his post, President Donald Trump announced Thursday, after the retired Marine general clashed with the president over a troop drawdown in Syria and Trump’s go-it-alone stance in world affairs.
Mattis, perhaps the most respected foreign policy official in Trump’s administration, will leave by the end of February after two tumultuous years struggling to soften and moderate the president’s hardline and sometimes abruptly changing policies. The announcement came a day after Trump surprised U.S. allies and members of Congress by announcing the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Syria, and as he continues to consider shrinking the American deployment in Afghanistan.
In his resignation letter, Mattis alluded to disagreements with Trump as the reason for his departure.
“Because you have the right to have a secretary of defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position,” Mattis wrote.
Trump said on Twitter that a new secretary will be named soon.
Putin issues ominous warning on rising nuclear war threat
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a chilling warning Thursday about the rising threat of a nuclear war, putting the blame squarely on the U.S., which he accused of irresponsibly pulling out of arms control treaties.
Speaking at his annual news conference, Putin warned that “it could lead to the destruction of civilization as a whole and maybe even our planet.”
He pointed at Washington’s intention to walk away from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, and its reluctance to negotiate the extension of the 2010 New START agreement, which expires in 2021 unless the two countries agree to extend it. “We are witnessing the breakup of the arms control system,” he said.
Moscow and Washington have been at loggerheads over the INF, which bans an entire class of weapons — all nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles of intermediate range. U.S. officials say Washington’s withdrawal from the pact was prompted by Russian violations of the treaty, which Moscow vehemently denies.
Earlier this month NATO, at U.S. request formally declared Russia to be in violation of the INF and demanded that it halt activity that breaches it. The move put the full weight of the alliance behind the U.S., which has given Russia until February to come into compliance or trigger Washington’s withdrawal from the treaty.”
From wire sources
Whitaker rejected advice to recuse himself from Russia probe
WASHINGTON — Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker chose not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation even though a top Justice Department ethics official advised him to step aside out of an “abundance of caution,” a senior official said Thursday.
Whitaker’s past criticism of the Russia investigation has raised questions about whether he can oversee it fairly. The ethics official said this week that a recusal was “a close call” but suggested Whitaker remove himself, even though he was not required to do so.
Whitaker decided not to take the advice.
Earlier Thursday, a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss it publicly told The Associated Press that Whitaker did not have to recuse himself from overseeing the probe. But that wasn’t the full picture. Later, a senior Justice Department official provided a much more detailed account of the ethics consultation.
It showed that although Whitaker was not required to step aside from the investigation, the issue wasn’t so clear cut. That official would discuss the matter with reporters only on condition of anonymity.
US charges 2 hackers with alleged Chinese intelligence ties
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials on Thursday indicted two alleged Chinese hackers said to have carried out an extensive campaign on behalf of Beijing’s main intelligence agency to steal trade secrets and other information from government agencies and “a who’s who” of major corporations in the United States and nearly a dozen other nations.
It was the latest in a series of Justice Department indictments targeting Chinese cyberespionage, and coincided with an announcement by Britain blaming China’s Ministry of State Security for trade-secret pilfering affecting Western nations.
The alleged hackers, one of whom is nicknamed “Godkiller,” are accused of breaching computer networks beginning as early as 2006 in a range of industries, including aviation and space, banking and finance, biotechnology oil and gas, satellites and pharmaceuticals.
Prosecutors say they also obtained the names, Social Security numbers and other personal information of more than 100,000 Navy personnel.
In a new twist reflecting corporate computing’s evolution, the hackers often infiltrated cloud computing companies and other major technology providers to indirectly reach clients’ valuable documents.