On May 9 the White House announced that it would nominate Shanahan for the Secretary of Defense position. But it never sent the nomination request to Congress to have Shanahan confirmed. During the usual FBI background check before a confirmation, a 2010 domestic violence incident Shanahan was involved in came up. It seems that it now ended his short career at the Pentagon.See also: FBI examining 2010 domestic fight involving acting defense secretary Shanahan; accounts differ on aggressor
Shanahan had zero experience in the military. He is a former Boeing manager. A recent Politico portrait of Shanahan described him as weak leader who allowed the war hawks in National Security Council to directly talk with regional commanders without even informing him. He was no counterweight for Bolton and Pompeo who are eager to wage war on Iran.
Yesterday ABC News reported that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would meet with talk with the Central Command and Special Operations Command leaders without Shanahan being there. It was extremely unusual:Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Florida on Monday to meet with leaders from U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command on Tuesday. The U.S. is considering "all options," including military force, to respond to Iran's reported attack on two oil vessels, Pompeo said on Sunday, raising concerns of a U.S. strike.There is no information what plans those talks were about.
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Pompeo will meet with CENTCOM and Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida on Tuesday to "discuss regional security concerns and ongoing operations," according to Ortagus, after calling several world leaders over the weekend to discuss America's evidence that Iran was behind last week's attacks.
Another very unusual sign is that the old war criminal Henry Kissinger visited the Pentagon yesterday and today.
It is unlikely that the U.S. would launch a war without a Secretary of Defense in place. Bolton and Pompeo obviously want a war on Iran and they try their best to instigate it. They need a new SecDef in place as soon as possible.
Russia slams the JIT's accusations as 'baseless':
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The JIT includes representatives from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, Ukraine and the Netherlands. Kiev lauded the accusations against the four, raised by the JIT, praising the international team of investigators.
"Ukraine welcomes the conclusions of the Joint Investigation Team on MH17. The President of Ukraine hopes that... those who are guilty of this brazen murder of innocent children, woman and men, will be put in the dock," recently elected President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement.
Pointing out "inconsistencies" in the probe, Moscow said the Dutch-led team was reluctant to search or study evidence that contradicted the theory that rebels were responsible for the incident. Moscow stands accused of providing the Buk launcher and missile, an allegation that it denies.
Moscow also blamed the JIT of failing to pressure Ukraine into providing radar data for the day when MH17 was shot down. It published its own radar data as well as records related to production and transportation of Buk missiles in Soviet times. According to Moscow, the data and records point to Ukraine as the culprit in the case. In particular, the warhead that destroyed the plane was of an older model that is no longer in use in Russia while its serial numbers, which were recovered at the crash site, point to a projectile that had been shipped to Ukraine.
Russia also criticized the JIT for relying on so-called 'open source evidence' like videos published on social media as well as opinions of 'civilian journalists' like the UK-based group Bellingcat in its reporting. Moscow says such evidence is not always reliable.
Bellingcat published its own report with a longer list of people, whom it accused of shooting down the airliner. The four suspects named by the JIT are on that list. Notably, the report was issued just hours before the JIT press conference.
Ever-obliging Deep State shill Elliott Higgins had to put his oar in:
- MH17 crash report: Bellingcat author was an employee of the Stasi
- Inaccurate and flawed: Russian bloggers raise more questions about Bellingcat MH17 investigation
- Bellingcat report on MH17 crash 'cheap fake' says ex-Russian Army official
Meanwhile, Russia is not the only country that has reservations about JIT's work. Last month Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said his country was not convinced by the evidence uncovered about either Russia's involvement or Ukraine's innocence in the case.
On Wednesday, the Dutch-led Joint Investigations Team (JIT) accused three Russians nationals and a Ukrainian of playing a significant role in the downing of MH17 over Ukraine in 2014. All 298 people onboard died back then.
On top of that, the allegations were not backed up by reliable evidence and followed a "not quite coherent" line of argument. At the same time, the ministry maintains, JIT still opts to ignore information provided by Moscow.
That includes declassification of military data on the Buk missile, publication of radar data and an experiment conducted to show the exact effect that the projectile has on a plane cockpit
"Since day one after the tragedy Russia was most interested in establishing the truth and willing to cooperate with the investigation," the ministry said.
That includes declassification of sensitive military data on the Buk missile, radar data and "documents" proving the projectile that downed the passenger jet was a Ukrainian one.
The foreign ministry noted that while Russia was only given a secondary role in the investigation, Kiev enjoyed full membership. That allowed Ukraine "to fabricate evidence" and ditch any responsibility for not closing its airspace. The decision to keep the airspace open was criticized by the 2015 report of the Dutch Safety Board (which led the technical part of the probe into the crash).Under such circumstances, we have legitimate questions about the work of the JIC. That underscores our previous concerns about the [investigation] process being biased and one-sided.That said, Moscow is still ready to cooperate on the matter to bring the actual perpetrators to justice.
Comment: Zero Hedge has market updates following announcements of the meeting: