Pentagon working to exempt Iraqi F-16 pilot trainees from Trump travel ban

[HAB911]

Source: Air Force Times

The Defense Department and Iraqi diplomats are trying to find a way to exempt Iraqi military pilots from President Trump’s executive order on immigration and allow them to continue training in the United States with the Air Force.

A Pentagon official confirmed to Air Force Times Monday that the department was working on an exemption allowing Iraqis to continue traveling to the U.S. to learn to fly F-16s, and said officials hoped to have the details ironed out today. The Washington Examiner first reported that a possible exemption was in the works.

“We are working closely with our State Department and Homeland Security Department counterparts to determine the practical effect of the executive order,” the official said. “The high importance we place on the Iraqi-U.S. relationship has not changed. Working by, with and through the government of Iraq to defeat ISIS in Iraq is still among our top priorities as a department and as a government.”

Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis also said the Iraqi pilots may come in on a different kind of visa that is unaffected by the travel ban, but that officials were trying to confirm that.

Read more: https://www.airforcetimes.com/articles/trump-immigration-order-iraqi-pilots?ct=t%28TFN+2_1_17%29&mc_cid=23e577e8c7&mc_eid=%5BUNIQID%5D

[BumRushDaShow]

1. "diplomats are trying to find a way to exempt Iraqi military pilots"

Easy fix. Rescind the damn thing and start over.

They are so clueless, arrogant, and boastful about their lack of knowledge about how the government works, that they are finding that everything they touch blows up in their own faces. But the sad part is the damage done to innocents.

[xor]

2. They can't do that, though...

They have to make it look like Trump is "getting stuff done".

It's amazing how blind Trump supporters are to this, and how they twist themselves all up to justify and explain the uselessness of this travel restriction.

[cstanleytech]

3. Its like watching Cirque du Soleil.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. None of them even understand the point of the E.O.

including the oaf signing them. It is supposed to follow existing law and direct employees of the respective executive branch agencies for how to carry out those laws.

The irony is that the only reason why "stuff wasn't getting done" was because of the do-nothing 114th Congress thanks to that base's own Eddie Munster and Turtle.