Trump Sending 10,000 More Troops, Another Aircraft Carrier Toward Iran

(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

President Donald Trump ordered a third aircraft carrier and an additional 10,000 troops to be deployed to the Middle East, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

The additional strike group’s arrival in the region will come after Secretary of State Marco Rubio kicked the Iranian delegation out of the U.S. as negotiations faltered following talks on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Axios scooped the news on Tuesday that Rubio had asked the Iranian diplomats to leave the country before their scheduled departure date.

Barak Ravid wrote, “Rubio’s move was a highly unusual diplomatic rebuke and laid bare the deep distrust between the two countries amid fruitless efforts to broker an end to the war.”

Trump said during his UN speech that he has a “big decision” to make, whether or not to “annihilate” Iran.

The WSJ noted, however, that the deployment will not be completed quickly, as “the ships, jet fighters, Marines and sailors will arrive in the region by the end of November, the officials said. Trump recently told aides that he expects to resume bombing Iran that same month.” The WSJ added:

The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt left its home port of San Diego on Sunday on a scheduled deployment, while the USS Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group, comprising three amphibious ships carrying Marines from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, left on Monday.

Two carriers—the USS George H.W. Bush and USS George Washington—are already in the Middle East. If the Washington stays after the Roosevelt arrives it will bring the region to three carrier strike groups for the first time since April, before Iran and the U.S. clinched a fragile ceasefire that temporarily ended fighting that began on Feb. 28. That ceasefire collapsed, and the two sides have fought sporadically since.

The report added that the USS George Washington “could leave the region and head back to its home port in Japan, bringing the force back down to two carriers. Spokespeople for the White House and Pentagon didn’t respond to requests for comment.”

This is a developing story and may be updated.

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