Donald Trump will choose retired General James Mattis as new secretary of defence
Mattis served more than four decades in the Marine Corps and is known as one of the most influential military leaders of his generation
US president-elect Donald Trump has confirmed he will choose retired Marine General James Mattis to be secretary of defence, selecting a former senior military officer who has said that responding to “political Islam” is the major security issue facing the US. Trump made the announcement during a post-election victory rally on Thursday in Cincinnati.
“We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our secretary of defence,” Trump told the crowd, referring by nickname to the tough-talking general.
Is political Islam in the best interest of the United States? I suggest the answer is no, but we need to have the discussion
“He’s our best. They say he’s the closest thing to [second world war] general George Patton that we have,” Trump continued, apparently divulging his pick days ahead of schedule as his transition team had already said there would be no more cabinet announcements this week.
“Okay. So I gave up a little secret. My people over there are probably saying: ‘You weren’t supposed to do that, Mr Trump’.”
Mattis, who retired as chief of US Central Command in 2013, has often said that Washington lacks an overall strategy in the Middle East, opting to instead handle issues in an ineffective one-by-one manner.
“Is political Islam in the best interest of the United States?” Mattis said at the Heritage Foundation in 2015, speaking about the separate challenges of the Islamic State and Iranian-backed terrorism. “I suggest the answer is no, but we need to have the discussion. If we won’t even ask the question, how do we even recognise which is our side in a fight?”