Donald Trump says may send 15,000 troops to border, Pentagon chief denies political stunt as US midterms loom
- A deployment of 15,000 would bring the military commitment on the border to roughly the same level as in war-torn Afghanistan.
- There are questions about whether Defence Secretary James Mattis was allowing the military to be leveraged as a political stunt
US President Donald Trump said that the number of military troops deployed to the US-Mexican border could reach 15,000 – roughly double the number the Pentagon said it currently plans for a mission whose dimensions are shifting daily.
The Pentagon said “more than 7,000” troops were being sent to the Southwest border to support the Customs and Border Protection agents. Officials said that number could reach a maximum of about 8,000 under present plans.
The troop numbers have been changing at a dizzying pace, with Trump drawing a hard line on immigration in the lead-up to the midterm elections.
Just last week officials were indicating that about 800 to 1,000 might be sent. On Monday, officials announced that about 5,200 were being deployed.
The next day, the Air Force general running the operation said more than the initially announced total were going, and he pointedly rejected a news report that it could reach 14,000, saying that was “not consistent with what’s actually being planned”.
General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the commander of US Northern Command, told reporters the number would exceed the initial contingent of 5,200, but he offered no estimate of the eventual total.