Members of the transition team of the newly elected President of the United States of America (USA) Donald Trump are drawing up a list of military officers who will be fired, and the list of names could include the heads of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which would represent an unprecedented turnaround in the Pentagon, the Reuters agency announced, inviting on two sources.
It is thought the new administration is likely to focus on officers believed to have ties to Trump's former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, who called Trump a "fascist to the core" in Bob Woodrow's latest book, The War, published last month. allies of the newly elected president labeled him as disloyal.
"Every single person Millie appointed and promoted will be gone, and there is a very detailed list of everyone who was associated with him," the source said.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff brings together the highest-ranking officers in the US military and is made up of the heads of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, National Guard and Space Force.
Planning for layoffs is in the early stages after Trump's Nov. 5 election victory, but such plans could change as his administration takes shape.
The announcement of the plans comes a day after Trump picked Fox News commentator and veteran Pete Hegsett to be secretary of defense.
"The next president of the United States needs to radically overhaul the Pentagon's senior leadership so that we are ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. A lot of people need to be fired," Hegseth wrote in his latest book, "War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the People Who Serve Us kept free" from 2024.
Hegsett also "targeted" Milieu's successor, Air Force Gen. C. Kay Brown, and a Reuters source confirmed those assumptions, saying Brown would be one of many officers to leave.
One of the interlocutors, however, questioned whether such a "mass shooting" at the Pentagon is feasible at all and to what extent.
It is also unclear whether Hegseth's lack of management experience could complicate his confirmation in the Senate, and whether a more traditional alternative for the position would have implemented such sweeping Pentagon layoffs.
Additionally, some current and former US officials play down the possibility of such sweeping changes, saying such a move would be unnecessary and a distraction at a time of global turmoil with wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.
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