NYT: Dismissals at Pentagon – Trump fires Joint Chiefs Chairman

Pentagon.
Photo: Center for Strategic and International Studies

President Trump fired the country’s senior military officer Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., as part of an extraordinary Friday night purge at the Pentagon that injected politics into the selection of the nation’s top military leaders, ‘The New York Times’ reports.

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.
Photo: Bloomberg

Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., a four-star fighter pilot known as C.Q. who became only the second African American to hold the chairman’s job, is to be replaced by a little-known retired three-star Air Force general, Dan Caine, who endeared himself to the president when they met in Iraq six years ago.

In all, six Pentagon officials were fired, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy; Gen. James Slife, the vice chief of the Air Force; and the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force.

The decision to fire General Brown, which Mr. Trump announced in a message on Truth Social, reflects the president’s insistence that the military’s leadership is too mired in diversity issues, has lost sight of its role as a combat force to defend the country and is out of step with his “America First” movement.

Joint Chiefs chairmen traditionally remain in place as administrations change, regardless of the president’s political party. But current White House and Pentagon officials said they wanted to appoint their own top leaders.

Mr. Hegseth did not say why he was firing the judge advocates general. But in his Senate confirmation hearing last month, he criticized military lawyers for placing needless legal restrictions on soldiers in battle — putting “his or her own priorities in front of the war fighters, their promotions, their medals, in front of having the backs of those making the tough calls on the front lines.”

Mr. Hegseth has previously said General Brown should be fired because of his “woke” focus on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the military.

“First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Mr. Hegseth said in an appearance on the “Shawn Ryan Show” in November. He added that any general involved with D.E.I. efforts should be fired. “Either you’re in for warfighting, and that’s it,” he said. “That’s the only litmus test we care about.”

In his message on Truth Social, Mr. Trump said he was honored to be nominating “Air Force Lieutenant General Dan ‘Razin’ Caine to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” calling him “an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.”

General Caine has logged over 2,800 flight hours in the F-16, including more than 100 in combat.
Photo: Youtube

In recent years, Mr. Trump has publicly lauded General Caine for telling him that the Islamic State could be defeated far more quickly than his advisers had suggested. The details of the story, which could not be independently verified, have shifted over time. In one version, Mr. Trump said the general claimed it would take a week to defeat the group; in another, he said four weeks.

Mr. Trump has also claimed that General Caine, during their meeting in Iraq in December 2018, donned a “Make America Great Again” hat, in defiance of military guidelines that active-duty troop should not wear political paraphernalia. General Caine has told aides that he has never worn a MAGA hat.

The dismissal of General Brown comes amid growing tumult at the Pentagon, the largest federal agency with three million employees, including 1.3 million service members. Mr. Hegseth has ordered senior military and Defense Department officials to draw up plans to cut 8 percent from the military budget over each of the next five years, officials said.

In a memo issued on Tuesday, Mr. Hegseth said a number of branches in the military and the Pentagon should turn in budget-cutting proposals by Monday, two officials said. The memo listed 17 exceptions to the proposed cuts, including military operations at the southern border.

Mr. Trump has now fired four four-star officers in the past month. Within 24 hours of his second inauguration, the president fired Adm. Linda L. Fagan, the first female officer to serve as the commandant of the Coast Guard.

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