Trump Reportedly Sending 3,500 Troops to Middle East Following Strike Against Iran

President Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly deploying 3,500 more troops to the Middle East following a targeted strike that killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

NBC News Pentagon correspondent Courtney Kube appeared with MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell on Andrea Mitchell Reports Thursday and stated that the U.S. is now sending the entire 82nd Airborne Division overseas amid rising tensions with Iran.

“This is the immediate reaction force,” Kube explained. “We saw the first battalion of this group move in several days ago after the U.S. Embassy came under siege in Baghdad. These are the additional troops as part of that immediate reaction force. Those first 700 moved into Kuwait. Many of those are in Baghdad and in Iraq according to the officials that we spoke with here.”

“This is a significant uptick in the number of U.S. troops that are now in the region,” she continued. “Throughout the region, there’s 60,000 U.S. troops throughout that whole area. But in this particular part in Iraq, there’s only about 5,200 U.S. troops there now. This now brings it to an additional 4,000 more troops ordered into that area just in the past week.”

Mitchell then asked Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) to comment on the news.

“It might be a wise move, but until the administration briefs us on what their plans are, neither Congress nor the American public can really reach that conclusion,” Kaine said. “When the U.S. had approached Iraq and said ‘we want to take military actions on your soil against Iran,’ they’ve objected to that and we have taken military action on Iraqi soil over their objections. That’s leading to a situation now where the U.S. –which was popular because we helped to beat ISIS – is becoming less and less popular.”

“We’re more and more in danger of the Iraqi government withdrawing our permission to be in Iraq. We’re pushing Iraq into the hands of Iran,” Kaine added.

Watch above, via MSNBC.