Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Source: AFP
President-elect Joe Biden said Monday that Donald
Trump’s appointees at the Pentagon were stalling on the transition
and warned that the United States faces security risks as a
result.
After he and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were briefed by
their transition teams on national security, Biden said that
political appointees at the Pentagon as well as the Office of
Management and Budget had put up “roadblocks.”
“Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information that we
need from the outgoing administration in key national security
area(s),” Biden said after the briefing.
“It is nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility.”
Biden said he was seeking a “clear picture” from the outgoing
administration on the force posture of US troops around the
world.
“We need full visibility into the budget planning underway at
the Defense Department and other agencies in order to avoid any
window of confusion or catch-up that our adversaries may try to
exploit,” Biden said.
Trump has refused to concede the November 3 election, which
Biden won by some seven million votes and by 306-232 in the
state-by-state Electoral College. The president has made
unsubstantiated claims of widespread fraud.
The Trump administration has drawn concern by shaking up the
leadership of the Pentagon since the election including firing
defense secretary Mark Esper, who had distanced himself from the
president’s use of force against unarmed anti-racism demonstrators
earlier this year.
Trump’s new acting defense secretary, Chris Miller, has said
that the outgoing administration had agreed with Biden’s people to
pause briefings for the holiday season, an assertion that the
incoming team called untrue.
Trump’s last-minute installation of loyalists at the Pentagon
comes amid high tensions with Iran, which Trump blamed for a rocket
attack on the US embassy in Iraq ahead of the January anniversary
of the US killing in Baghdad of a top Iranian general.
AFP