Former Defense Minister: Trump wanted to strike Iran and Venezuela

Former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper revealed a series of “dangerous” decisions that former President Donald Trump and those close to him sought to take, at the foreign and domestic policy levels, including “strike Iran, bomb Mexico, launch a military attack on Venezuela, and besiege Cuba.”

In an interview with the American “CBS” network, Asper said, in the context of promoting his memoirs, which will be officially released today (Tuesday), entitled “Sacred Oath”, that the then National Security Adviser, Robert O’Brien, “stunned” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, When he said that the president wanted to “kill an Iranian military commander operating outside Iran” before the US elections. “Millie and I have known about this person and the problems he is raising in the area for a while,” Asper wrote. Esper quotes Milley as appreciating that O’Brien pushed Trump to take such a step “to create news that would help him get reelected.”

The Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, was assassinated by a US strike near Baghdad airport in early 2020. Asber also talked about pushing O’Brien the former president to launch a military strike against Tehran, because of its uranium enrichment.

Esper also claimed that Trump suggested shooting protesters who took to the streets to protest the killing of the African American citizen, George Floyd; He pointed out that “these ideas were presented every few weeks, and we had to thwart them.”

For his part, Trump denied these allegations, saying in a statement: “This is a lie…There are 10 witnesses who support what I say. Mark Asper was weak and ineffective, so I had to run the army.”
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