The president had ordered that the 2,000 American troops in the country leave within 30 days, but said on Monday that they would be \u201cslowly\u201d drawn down.<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump has agreed to give the military about four months to withdraw the 2,000 United States troops in Syria, administration officials said on Monday, backtracking from his abrupt order two weeks ago that the military pull out within 30 days.
Mr. Trump confirmed on Twitter that troops would \u201cslowly\u201d be withdrawn, but complained that he got little credit for the move after a fresh round of criticism from retired Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and revelations from the departing White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, himself a retired Marine general, about the president\u2019s impulsive decision-making.
\u201cIf anybody but Donald Trump did what I did in Syria, which was an ISIS loaded mess when I became President, they would be a national hero,\u201d Mr. Trump wrote. \u201cISIS is mostly gone, we\u2019re slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time fighting ISIS remnants.\u201d
For a president who has looked to the military for affirmation throughout his campaign and presidency and boasted about stocking his cabinet with what he called \u201cmy generals,\u201d his decision on Dec. 19 to withdraw quickly from Syria was a significant split from his military and civilians advisers. The criticism from General McChrystal, who commanded American-led troops in Afghanistan from 2009 to 2010, echoed longstanding denunciations by former senior intelligence officials, who have warned that Mr. Trump\u2019s approach to national security is reckless.
But during a surprise trip to Iraq last week, Mr. Trump privately told the commander of American forces in Iraq and Syria, Lt. Gen. Paul J. LaCamera, that the military could have several months to complete a safe and orderly withdrawal, according to two United States officials. And on Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told reporters that a \u201cpause situation\u201d on the troop withdrawal was in effect.
A Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Sean Robertson, said on Monday, \u201cI\u2019ll let the president\u2019s words speak for themselves.\u201d
By extending the timetable for withdrawal to several months, Mr. Trump stuck to his commitment to untangle the United States from yearslong military commitments but also heeded warnings from current and former military leaders of the danger of a quick exit. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who resigned in protest over Mr. Trump\u2019s decision, said that leaving Syria in 30 days would jeopardize the fight against the Islamic State, betray its Syrian Kurdish-Arab allies on the ground, and cede the eastern part of the country to the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies.
Nevertheless, Mr. Trump\u2019s latest plan left open the question of whether an orderly pullout from Syria would happen. Military planners say they need about 120 days, or four months, to carry out a withdrawal that allows time to decide which equipment to move elsewhere in the region, leave behind with allies or disable to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Syrian government or Russia or Iran.
Military officials have declined to specify the timing of the departure, partly for operational security reasons and partly because many details are still quite fluid, and officials recognize that Mr. Trump could change his mind at any moment and speed up the departure.
Mr. Mattis, who will be succeeded in an acting capacity on Tuesday by his deputy, Patrick M. Shanahan, urged Pentagon employees in a farewell message on Monday to remain \u201cundistracted from our sworn mission to support and defend the Constitution.\u201d
When Mr. Trump first ordered a drawdown within 30 days, his position provoked an outcry, including from some of his political allies like Mr. Graham, who said that such a hasty withdrawal would leave exposed American partners such as the Kurds, who are concerned about a possible attack from Turkey. But after lunch with Mr. Trump at the White House on Sunday, Mr. Graham said he felt \u201ca lot better\u201d about the president\u2019s plans.
Military officials have scrambled to translate Mr. Trump\u2019s shifting directives and comments into actual orders for commanders in Syria and Iraq to carry out.
On Friday, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met at the White House with Mr. Trump\u2019s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, to get more clarity on the timing and other details of the withdrawal. Mr. Bolton is scheduled to visit Turkey and Israel in the coming days to discuss regional security issues.
General Dunford then spoke to Mr. Graham about the Syria troop withdrawal before the senator\u2019s meeting on Sunday with Mr. Trump. Several Pentagon officials had hoped Mr. Graham could change Mr. Trump\u2019s mind on the pullout or at least persuade him to extend the withdrawal timetable.
Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for General Dunford, said in an email that the general and the senator had spoken recently, but he declined to comment on their confidential conversation and referred questions about Syria to the White House.
With most of his top advisers on vacation or having left the White House for good, Mr. Trump spent the weekend talking to allies and watching cable news coverage of the partial government shutdown .
He closely monitors the Sunday morning news shows, where General McChrystal warned that leaving Syria would effectively give up any American leverage over the war there.
\u201cIf you pull American influence out, you\u2019re likely to have greater instability and of course it\u2019ll be much more difficult for the United States to try to push events in any direction,\u201d General McChrystal said, acknowledging that it was not a \u201cbig surprise\u201d that Mr. Trump had sought to do so.
He was among the most vocal of retired military leaders who have increasingly criticized Mr. Trump, who responded by tweeting on Monday morning about the \u201cfailed generals\u201d who oversaw American engagements in the Middle East as they continued and were extended.
\u201cI campaigned on getting out of Syria and other places,\u201d he wrote . \u201cNow when I start getting out the Fake News Media, or some failed Generals who were unable to do the job before I arrived, like to complain about me & my tactics, which are working. Just doing what I said I was going to do!\u201d
The president\u2019s full-throated defense set him apart from past presidents, said Prof. Peter Feaver, a national security official under former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush who now teaches political science at Duke University.
\u201cEvery president has frustrations with retired military who are grading his homework from the sidelines. Think of every Fox News pundit during the Obama years and think of the so-called revolt of the retired generals in 2006 over Rumsfeld,\u201d Mr. Feaver said.
\u201cWhat\u2019s different is that this president does so much of his grousing and thinking aloud in public on Twitter, so whereas Obama probably said something under his breath to his aides and President Bush did as well, they didn\u2019t tweet it out for everybody to see and hear,\u201d he added.
Mr. Trump\u2019s aides are mindful that he needs to maintain support from rank-and-file members of the military, and they have at times pointed to support he has gotten from soldiers, demonstrated when he visited Iraq the day after Christmas, or when he visited Fort Drum in upstate New York several months ago.
\u201cThe president has shown that he can break what had been considered longstanding taboos, he can grab the third rails and not pay a political price for it, but he has not disproved the conventional wisdom that says doing this makes it harder to govern,\u201d Mr. Feaver said.
Mr. Feaver suggested that Mr. Trump is playing with fire as Democrats take control of the House of Representatives. \u201cHis public complaints about the active-duty folks are much more toxic for civil military relations,\u201d Mr. Feaver said. \u201cRemember that they must testify before Congress in the coming months. This issue will fester.\u201d
In his three-paragraph farewell message, Mr. Mattis, as he has done before, cited President Abraham Lincoln\u2019s telegram to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on Feb. 1,1865, as the Civil War ended: \u201cLet nothing which is transpiring, change, hinder or delay your military movements, or plans.\u201d
While it was difficult to avoid the possibility that Mr. Mattis was making one final veiled criticism of the commander in chief, colleagues who know the secretary well said his message was more focused on telling Pentagon and military personnel to stay the course no matter the challenges.<\/p>\n