Five former US defense secretaries call Trump’s military dismissals reckless

Summary
Former defense secretaries criticize Trump’s military dismissals
Letter calls on lawmakers not to confirm Trump’s nominee for top post in military
Former defense secretaries accuse Trump of attempting to remove legal constraints on president’s power
WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (Reuters) – Five former U.S. defense secretaries on Thursday condemned President Donald Trump’s “reckless” dismissals of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other senior officials and called on Congress to block any confirmation of their successors.
In a scathing letter, they also accused Trump of making the non-political U.S. military a tool of partisan politics and using the dismissals, which extend to top Army, Navy and Air Force lawyers, “to remove legal constraints on the president’s power.”

The letter was written by four defense secretaries who served under Democratic administrations, as well as James Mattis, a retired Marine general who served as Trump’s first Pentagon chief from 2017 to 2019. “President Trump’s actions undermine our all-volunteer force and weaken our national security,” they wrote. In addition to Mattis, the letter’s signers — William Perry, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel and Lloyd Austin — served under the Democratic presidential administrations of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Trump announced the dismissals late Friday, but his administration has not yet elaborated on the reasons behind the unprecedented changes, which also include the firing of Navy Chief Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first female officer to lead a military service.

Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown was the second black officer to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and was barely halfway through his four-year term.

“Mr. Trump’s dismissals raise troubling questions about the administration’s willingness to politicize the military,” they wrote. “We, like many Americans — including many service members — conclude that these leaders are being removed for entirely partisan reasons.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a staunch opponent of diversity initiatives at the Pentagon that he says are discriminatory, had questioned before his nomination whether Brown got the job only because he was black. Asked about the dismissal, Hegseth told Fox News on Sunday that Brown was honorable but “not the right person for this time” and said Trump has the right to choose his team. The former defense secretaries called on the US House of Representatives and Senate to hold hearings to “assess the national security implications” of Trump’s dismissal. Trump’s Republican Party holds a majority in both houses of Congress. Since taking office for a second time on January 20, Trump has fired and sidelined hundreds of civil servants and top officials of agencies in his first steps toward reducing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.

The letter warns that actions taken at the Pentagon could deter Americans from choosing military life if their careers are judged through the lens of partisan politics. It could also have a negative impact on “speaking truth to power,” they warned. “We urge the U.S. Congress to hold Mr. Trump accountable for these reckless actions and fully discharge its constitutional oversight responsibilities,” they wrote. Trump chose retired three-star Gen. Dan Kane to replace Brown. Kane, a retired F-16 pilot, will be promoted to the rank of four-star general and then undergo a potentially difficult Senate confirmation process to get a four-year term as the uniformed head of the nation’s military. “Senators should refuse to confirm any new Defense Department nominations, including that of retired Lt. Gen. Dan Kane as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” the former defense secretaries wrote. Reuters Politics U.S. Get weekly news and analysis on U.S. politics and what it means for the world with our newsletter.