US
President-elect Donald Trump has announced that retired Marine General
James Mattis, an outspoken critic of the Iran nuclear agreement, will
serve as his secretary of defense.
“We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’
Mattis as our secretary of defense. But we’re not announcing it until
Monday so don’t tell anybody,” Trump told a rally on Thursday in
Cincinnati, the first stop on a post-election “thank-you tour.”
“They say he’s the closest thing to Gen. George Patton that we have and it’s about time,” he added.
Mattis, 66, served more than four
decades in the Marine Corps. The retired four-star general, known as
“Mad Dog” and the “Warrior Monk,” had been involved in several key
military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In November 2001, he led Marines that
carried out a raid in helicopters on Afghanistan’s Kandahar province,
giving the US military a new foothold against Taliban militants after
the October 2001 American-led invasion of the country.
In 2003, Mattis commanded a division of
Marines during the Iraq war, and in 2004 he led Marines in bloody street
fighting in the city of Fallujah.
Like Trump, Mattis is also an opponent
of the Iran nuclear agreement, which was reached last year between Iran
and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany.
Under the deal, Tehran agreed to limit some aspects of its nuclear
program in exchange for removal of sanctions.
Read More: presstv
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