Pentagon caught off guard by White House statement on Syria: emails

The Hill: Internal Pentagon emails show that the White House did not coordinate with or notify Defense Department officials before it released a statement last year warning that the Syrian government would “pay a heavy price” if it conducted another chemical weapons attack, BuzzFeed News reported.

“We woke up to the statement. [White House] did not coord with us or [Joint Chiefs of Staff] or [State Department] from what I can tell,” top Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White told Kevin Sweeney, chief of staff to Defense Secretary James Mattis, in an email obtained by BuzzFeed News.

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