House Armed Services chairman: Another 3,500 troops heading to the U.S.-Mexico border
Another 3,500 active-duty troops will deploy to the U.S.-Mexico border, House Armed Services Chairman Adam Smith revealed Thursday in a news release blasting Pentagon officials’ unwillingness to discuss openly in Congress the military’s involvement along the southern border.
Defense officials were called to a House Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday to discuss the military’s border mission and failed to disclose that additional troops would be sent to the border, Smith wrote Wednesday in a letter to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan admonishing them for withholding information.
“I am deeply troubled that the witnesses did not disclose the upcoming increase in [National Guard], reserve, and active-duty personnel, even though we asked them multiple times during a two-and-a-half-hour hearing what would happen next on the border,” Smith, D-Wash., said in a statement about the letter. “They never mentioned it, despite the fact that the secretary of defense was revealing an increase in personnel that same day. This was at best an error in judgment, and at worst flat-out dishonesty.”
Minutes before defense officials testified Tuesday to the House committee, Shanahan held a news briefing with Pentagon reporters were he revealed a few thousand more troops would be deployed to the southern border.
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2019/02/house-armed-services-chairman-another-3500-troops-heading-to-the-u-s-mexico-border/