Army reverses plan to send Fort Bragg troops, others home from Washington area

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s Pentagon chief shot down his idea of using troops to quell protests Wednesday but then reversed course on pulling part of the 82nd Airborne Division off standby in an extraordinary clash between the U.S. military and its commander in chief.

Both Trump and Defense Secretary Mark Esper also drew stinging, rare public criticism from Trump’s first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, in the most public pushback of Trump’s presidency from the men he put at the helm of the world’s most powerful military.

Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division remain on standby at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and Fort Belvoir in Virginia outside Washington.

Esper angered Trump early Wednesday when he said he opposed using military troops for law enforcement, seemingly taking the teeth out of the president’s threat to use the Insurrection Act to send soldiers to states to “dominate” their streets. Esper said the 1807 law should be invoked in the United States “only in the most urgent and dire of situations.” He added, “We are not in one of those situations now.”

Read more: https://www.fayobserver.com/news/20200603/army-reverses-plan-to-send-fort-bragg-troops-others-home-from-washington-area
(Fayettesville Observer)