Following congressional pressure for transparency and the decimation of ISIS by coalition fighters, Pentagon is preparing to discuss the number of troops deployed to Syria more openly in the coming days. Declaring the number of troops in Syria has been a sensitive matter for over a year now due to security concerns.
But with ISIS fast fading away, the United States Government says it could now make public the number of troops deployed to join coalition forces to tackle ISIS.
According to CNN, James Mattis had indicated he was working on a policy to openly acknowledge the approximate number of troops deployed but would not be unduly specific. The Pentagon had for months said only about 500 troops were in Syria before a recently published manpower statistics report publicly available on the Pentagon website said there were 1,547 troops there, throwing up fresh confusion.
Meanwhile, some officials are saying there are still concerns about being too specific about where US units are located, or how many troops are in particular locations because of the security risks and fears the information might provide clues about their weapons and military capabilities.
