‘Money First’! Trump Says Troops Will Not Leave Airbase Unless Iraq Compensates US

By Staff, Agencies

Money lover US President Trump Sunday said the United States would not abandon its airbase in Iraq unless the country paid billions for the cost of building it.

"We're not leaving unless they pay us back for it," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One as it flew from his home in Palm Springs, Florida, back to Washington.

“We have a very extraordinarily expensive airbase that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it," he said.

Trump made the remarks as the Iraqi parliament Sunday voted in favor of expelling US troops from the country in response to the assassination last week of top Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani.

Trump did not specify the airbase, but he was presumably referencing the al-Assad Airbase in Anbar province, which he has previously said cost the United States a "fortune" to build. The base was originally built by the Iraqis, but the United States made investments to improve it after ousting Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Trump claimed the US would inflict crippling sanctions on Iraq if it forced US troops to depart.

“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it on a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame,” he said.

“If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq."