Trump's Syria announcement surprised his own sanctions officials

In Washington, senior officials at the State Department and Treasury Department scrambled to understand how to cancel the sanctions, many of which have been in place for decades, according to four U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The White House had issued no memorandum or directive to State or Treasury sanctions officials to prepare for the unwinding and didn’t alert them that the president’s announcement was imminent, one senior U.S. official said (Read more at Astroawani).