{"id":72693,"date":"2021-09-29T13:22:52","date_gmt":"2021-09-29T18:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=72693"},"modified":"2021-09-29T13:22:52","modified_gmt":"2021-09-29T18:22:52","slug":"72693","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=72693","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Milley confirms he told China he would call ahead of US attack, claims Esper ordered calls based on intel<\/a><\/p>\n

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley confirmed that he told his Chinese counterpart that he would \u201ccall\u201d to warn of any potential U.S. attacks on Beijing, maintaining he had that conversation at the direction of then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper after assessing intelligence suggesting heightened Chinese concerns about escalation between the two \u201cgreat\u201d powers.<\/p>\n

Milley addressed allegations that he held \u201csecret\u201d calls with his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People\u2019s Liberation Army, in October 2020 and days after the Capitol riot in January 2021, which were included in \u201cPeril,\u201d a book co-authored by Washington Post correspondents Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.<\/p>\n

Milley has faced calls to resign since the revelations were made public earlier this month. The book \u201cPeril\u201d by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa claims that Milley contacted Li after he had reviewed intelligence that suggested Chinese officials believed the United States was planning an attack on China amid military exercises in the South China Sea. The book claims Milley contacted Li a second time to reassure him that the U.S. would not make any type of advances or attack China in any form.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, during a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee focused on the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, Milley responded to questions about the allegations.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Milley explained that there was a \u201cbody of intelligence\u201d that led to the call with his Chinese counterpart that was \u201cpersuasive\u201d to Esper and himself, that the Chinese \u201cthought wrongly that the United States is going to attack them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am certain, guaranteed certain, that President Trump had no intent to attack,\u201d Milley said Wednesday. \u201cAnd it was my task to make sure I communicated that, and the purpose was to de-escalate.\u201d<\/p>\n

When pressed on whether he told Li he would notify him should the U.S. choose to plan an attack on China, Milley replied: \u201cI said, generally, there\u2019s not going to be a war, there\u2019s not going to be an attack between great powers, and if there was, the tensions would build up there, because going back and forth from all kinds of senior officials, I said, help, general, help. I\u2019ll give a call, but we\u2019re not going to attack you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrust me, we\u2019re not going to attack,\u201d Milley continued. \u201cThese are two great powers and I am doing my best to transmit the president\u2019s intent, President Trump\u2019s intent, to ensure that the American people are protected from an incident that could escalate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milley added, though, that he is \u201cnot going to tip off any enemy to what the United States is going to do in an actual plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m trying to do is persuade an adversary that\u2019s heavily armed, that was clearly and unambiguously, according to intelligence reports, very nervous about our behavior and what was happening inside this country,\u201d Milley explained. \u201cAnd they were concerned that we, President Trump, was going to launch an attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milley maintained that Trump \u201cwas not going to launch an attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cI would never tip off any enemy to any kind of surprise that we were going to do. That\u2019s a different context than that conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the intelligence, Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, said it was not shared with Congress.<\/p>\n

Milley explained it \u201cwasn\u2019t just a singular report, there was a lot, and it was significant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it was concerning to the point where Secretary of Defense Esper, Admiral [Philip] Davidson and myself, along with others, had conversations about it and I was directed by then-Secretary of Defense Esper,\u201d Milley said. \u201cFirst, he directed his assistant secretary of Defense for Asia Pacific Affairs to make calls and then me. This is all done with oversight, and I tried to lay that out in the memoranda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milley\u2019s comments Wednesday come after his testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday on the allegations, where he maintained his \u201cabsolute\u201d loyalty to the United States Tuesday, and said he made top Trump administration officials aware of calls with his Chinese counterpart, despite reports to the contrary.<\/p>\n

Milley, on Tuesday, explained that he is \u201cspecifically directed to communicate with the Chinese by Department of Defense Guidance, Policy Dialogue System.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese military to military communications at the highest level are critical to the security of the United States in order to deconflict military actions, manage crisis and prevent war between great powers armed with nuclear weapons,\u201d Milley said.<\/p>\n

Milley\u2019s comments come amid calls for his resignation, including from former acting Defense Secretary Miller. Miller said he \u201cdid not and would not ever authorize\u201d Milley to have \u201csecret\u201d calls with his\u00a0Chinese<\/a>\u00a0counterpart, describing the allegations as a \u201cdisgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination,\u201d and calling on him to resign \u201cimmediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Biden, though, has said he has full confidence in the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Milley confirms he told China he would call ahead of US attack, claims Esper ordered calls based on intel Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley confirmed that he told his Chinese counterpart that he would \u201ccall\u201d to warn of any potential U.S. attacks on Beijing, maintaining he had that conversation at … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crap-for-brains","category-enemies-foreign-domestic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=72693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72694,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72693\/revisions\/72694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=72693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=72693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=72693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}