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Trump Outs Secretive Navy SEAL Team In Major Blunder During Photo Op in Iraq

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According to Newsweek, Donald Trump revealed that a covert U.S. Navy SEAL team was deployed to Iraq after the president secretly traveled to the region to meet with American forces serving in a combat zone for the first time since being elected to office.

While the commander-in-chief can declassify information, showing the faces of covert special forces soldiers would normally not be revealed while the members were still deployed. That information is almost always classified and is a violation of operational security.

Trump flew to Iraq late Christmas Day after facing a barrage of negative headlines over the holiday season amid a partial government shutdown. The president and first lady Melania Trump posed for pictures with U.S. service members at al-Asad air base in Iraq.

The clandestine trip came a week after Trump ordered the Pentagon to begin planning the withdraw roughly 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria and around 7,000 from Afghanistan over the next few months. The abrupt decision prompted the resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who disagreed with the drawdown.

A pool report during Trump’s visit said the details of the trip were embargoed until the president finished giving his remarks to a group of about 100 mostly U.S. special operation troops engaged in combat operations in Iraq and Syria.

The pool report went on to say that Trump paused to take a selfie with U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Kyu Lee, who said he was the chaplain for SEAL Team Five, based out of Coronado, California. The chaplain said Trump told him: “Hey, in that case, let’s take a picture.”

After Trump left Iraqi airspace, the president posted a video to his Twitter account of his time spent with American forces during his visit to Iraq. Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” plays over the video and shows the president and the first lady posing for pictures with service members that appear to be from SEAL Team Five. The special warfare operators are dressed in full battle gear and wearing night vision goggles.

The video cuts to team members shaking the president’s hand before cutting to other special operations personnel and support troops.

The deployments of special operation forces, including Navy SEALs are almost classified events, as to protect those men and women that are on the front lines of every overt and covert conflict the United States is involved in,” a Defense Department official told Newsweek on condition of anonymity.

“Even during special operation demonstrations for congressional delegations or for the president or vice president, personnel either have their faces covered or their face is digitally blurred prior to a release to the general public,” the official said.

The president’s video did not blur the faces of special operation forces.

“I don’t recall another time where special operation forces had to pose with their faces visible while serving in a war zone,” the Pentagon official said.

Twitter was pissed:

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