The United States will keep troops in Iraq in order to “watch” Iran, Donald Trump said on Sunday. Mr Trump said he wanted to maintain a military presence in the country even though he had repeatedly described the original decision to invade Iraq as one of the “greatest mistakes” ever made by the US. “We spent a fortune on building this incredible base. We might as well keep it,” Mr Trump said in a wide-ranging interview on the CBS flagship political programme, Face the Nation. “One of the reasons I want to keep it is because I want to be looking a little bit at Iran because Iran is a real problem.” The base, he said, was perfectly situated for looking across the whole of the Middle East. “We're going to keep watching and we're going to keep seeing and if there's trouble, if somebody is looking to do nuclear weapons or other things, we're going to know it before they do.” US military personnel in the Middle East The US president has faced criticism over his approach to the Middle East, alarming senior Republicans over his determination to disengage from the region. Mr Trump, however, reiterated his unhappiness with the endless and costly wars in Syria and Afghanistan as he sought to clarify and justify his approach to the region. Just before Christmas, Mr Trump announced that he was pulling 2,000 troops out of Syria against the wishes of his defence secretary at the time, James Mattis, who quit in protest. In the Face the Nation interview, the US president said he had asked for Mr Mattis to resign because he was unhappy with his performance. “He resigned because I was very nice to him. But I gave him big budgets and he didn't do well in Afghanistan,” he said. Global Isil attacks However, in the interview he was non-committal over the timescale for withdrawing troops from Syria because of the US commitment to protecting Israel. On Afghanistan, Mr Trump, who has been a critic of America’s involvement in the country, confirmed that some troops would remain after some forces are withdrawn. “I'll leave intelligence there. Real intelligence, by the way. I'll leave intelligence there and if I see nests forming, I'll do something about it.” But at the same time, he hinted that he was hopeful a peace deal could be negotiated with the Taliban. “We've been there close to 19 years. And it's time. And we'll see what happens with the Taliban. They want peace. They're tired. “Everybody's tired. We'd like to have - I don't like endless wars. This war. What we're doing is got to stop at some point.” Mr Trump’s determination to reduce America’s presence in the Middle East and his scrapping of the Iran nuclear deal flies in the face of the advice he has been given by the US intelligence establishment. But Mr Trump was unrepentant over his decision to ignore his own intelligence experts who have said that Iran has complied with the nuclear deal. US military personnel in the Middle East “I disagree with them 100 per cent. It is a vicious country that kills many people,” Mr Trump said. “So when my intelligence people tell me how wonderful Iran is - if you don't mind, I'm going to just go by my own counsel.” He blamed the intelligence services for America’s involvement in Iraq. “Those intel people didn't know what the hell they were doing, and they got us tied up in a war that we should have never been in. And we've spent seven trillion dollars in the Middle East and we have lost lives.” Stephen Myrow, managing partner with Beacon Policy Advisors, a Washington DC-based policy analysis firm, said the US president was using the interview to move the debate on from the government shutdown. “He is trying to turn the page,” he said. “He is clearly in campaign mode and this is aimed at his 'America First' base. “For the first time he is facing pushback from his own party in Washington and this is a case of his saying 'promises made, promises kept'.”
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