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From: TT
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February 1 | Photo: Alex Brandon / AP / TT
Mark Esper was fired from his post as the United States Secretary of Defense. Stock Photography.
Sources at the Pentagon’s defense headquarters express concern over the high appointments of Trump loyalists within the US defense leadership. Democrats point to the main risks of staff turnover at a time when a new president is about to be named.
On Monday, Republican President Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Christopher Miller, director of the US National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC).
In the wake of this, several senior Pentagon decision-makers James Anderson, Joseph Kernan and Jen Stewart have resigned, according to a statement from Miller reported by the CNBC media company.
All three will be replaced by Anthony Tata, Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Kash Patel, people who according to various sources inside and outside the Pentagon and by the media are considered loyal to Trump.
– This is scary. These are dictatorial measures, a defense source told CNN.
Democrat warns
The president has yet to be defeated by his opponent, Democrat Joe Biden, since the Nov.3 election. Trump claims that there is voter fraud in some of the states where Biden has been declared the winner, and has stated that the White House party is far from over.
Therefore, the changes at the Pentagon are particularly concerning, according to Democrat Adam Smith, chairman of the House Military Committee.
“It’s hard to overstate how dangerous (personnel) turnover is in the Department of Defense during a presidential transition period,” he said in a statement, reports CNN.
“Hard to see”
That senior decision-makers in the Pentagon resign or are fired so close that the defense secretary can leave may be a sign of the beginning of a process to clear the Defense Department, “something that should concern all Americans.” writes Smith.
According to Jan Hallenberg, an American research leader and expert at the Foreign Policy Institute, it is difficult to say more precisely what Trump is planning.
-But it’s hard for me to see that he actually goes into some kind of military intervention, Hallenberg tells TT.
“A revenge”
Hallenberg believes that disagreement over US military action in Afghanistan is behind the personnel changes. Esper was also fired because he did not want to be as tough as Trump during the riots and violence in America earlier this year.
– This is payback for the fact that he (Esper) wasn’t loyal enough, says Hallenberg.
He is no less surprised that Anthony Tata is now ranking so high, because he made Islamophobic statements and also called former President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader.”
– It seems extremely inappropriate that he is so high in the hierarchy, says Hallenberg.
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