Joint Chiefs
Deep in the inner rings of the Pentagon is the core of the United States military, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Here, the commanders of each of the military services; Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, the Space Force, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, serve as the balance point. Each of the “Chiefs” runs their own branch. And each is accountable to civilian leadership, the core of the American experiment. The Chairman isn’t in the “chain of command” as he doesn’t “run” a branch. But he serves as the chief liaison to the highest civilian leaders, the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States.
It is the job of the Joint Chiefs to execute the orders of the civilian leadership. They need to be prepared for every contingency. In order to respond quickly to world crisis and civilian requests, the Office of the Joint Chiefs has its own staff. There are eight directorates, dealing with topics like manpower, intelligence, operations and logistics. It is up to J-5, the directorate for planning, to be ready for any contingency. They are the directorate of “what if”: what if China invades Taiwan, what if North Korea launches nuclear weapons at South Korea, what if Israel bombs the nuclear factories in Iran. J5 develops the contingency plans, constantly changing and evolving to meet the current world crises.
Plans
There wasn’t a “Joint Staff” back then, but the pre-World War II Navy and Army “gamed” out a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (Military Aviation). Unfortunately they didn’t “apply” their results (carrier based bombers got through to the bases in the “game” too). J-5 “plans” for everything, because anything might happen. If the President asks for one of the “what if” plans, the Chairman has to be prepared, and the plan needs to be up to date.
Iran backed forces in Iraq launched rocket attacks on American forces stationed in the region throughout 2019. President Trump was looking for an appropriate retort to those provocations. The watchword of American foreign policy is “proportional response”. The Iranians were “stinging” American forces. What could the US do to “swat” them down, without over-reacting and creating a world crisis? The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Mark Milley, provided the President and his advisors, gradations of reaction. They ranged from raising US force levels in the area, to Special Forces Operations, to full out war.
Act of War
The President and his staff determined to use a drone strike to “take out” the leader of the Iranian military in charge of planning and support to Iraqi, Syrian and Lebanese “extremist” forces. General Qasem Soleimani led the irregular forces for two decades, and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds, including Americans. On January 3, 2020, a US drone killed the General on the road from the Baghdad airport.
Killing an Iranian general is an act of war, and the United States needed to be prepared for any Iranian response. J-5 had contingency plans for all sorts of possibilities, including an all-out war calling for a US invasion of Iran. General Milley, as the responsible member of the military, presented these options to the National Security Council and the President, Donald Trump. Obviously, the J-5 plans for the invasion of Iran were as “Top Secret” as they come. (Here are three essays from “Our America” of that time: No Backing Out, One Man, Two Views of Iran).
Mark Meadows
Mark Meadows with the White House Chief of Staff. Like many of those who worked for Donald Trump, Meadows struggled to find employment after he left the White House (particularly after the Insurrection of January 6th). So he decided to write his auto-biography, with help by a “ghost-writer”. It wasn’t just to provide “regular” income; Meadows is a pivotal figure in the Department of Justice and the Atlanta District Attorney investigations of election fraud. He is “in need” of legal counsel on a number of fronts, at $400 an hour.
So in July of 2021, the writer met with former President Trump and some of his staff at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. One of the “stories” that came out of the Trump White House, was that the President was pressing to go to war with Iran, and that the National Security Council and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs “talked him down” to the Soleimani attack. Trump hoped to use Meadow’s book to blame General Milley for proposing an invasion of Iran. The writer recorded the interview. That recording was discovered as evidence by Jack Smith’s Justice Department investigation, and CNN found it as well. CNN played it to the public this week.
Isn’t it Cool
We hear the former President telling the writer that it was Milley who proposed invasion, not him. And to “prove” this, we hear the President shuffling through papers, finally pulling out one that he identifies as from the military, showing the invasion plans. Trump then not only recognizes that it’s Top Secret, but acknowledges he doesn’t currently have the power to declassify it. His final words, “Isn’t it cool?”.
Isn’t it cool? The former President used Top Secret documents to improve his image in a book. He shared it with a writer without a security clearance, and acknowledges that. And it’s all on “tape”. Jack Smith hasn’t brought charges in New Jersey, though the tape demonstrates that Trump had Top Secret documents there. Smith will use the tape to demonstrate that the former President was well aware that he couldn’t declassify documents after he left office. That destroys any defense that Trump “…thought he already declassified them when he left the White House”.
It’s another “nail in the coffin” for Donald Trump in the classified document charges.
