US army chief urges greater “combat readiness” for war with North Korea
By
Peter Symonds
11 October 2017
US Army Chief of Staff, General Mark Milley, injected greater urgency into the US preparations for war with North Korea in a speech yesterday to a gathering of top military officers.
“Combat readiness is our no.1 priority,” Milley said in addressing the annual Association of the US Army conference. “Do not wait on orders and printed new regulations and manuals. Do not wait on force structure changes. You and you alone are responsible for the readiness of your unit. Put simply, I want you ready for what might come.”
“Why is it that we must be ready?” he asked rhetorically. “Well you don’t have to have access to top secret intelligence. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper or watch the news… It is on the Korean Peninsula where, in my view, we find the most dangerous near-term threat to the US.”
Speaking earlier to the media, the general warned: “A full-blown war on the Korean Peninsula will be horrific by any stretch of the imagination. No one has any doubts about that.” However, leaving no doubt that such a war is exactly what is being prepared, Milley declared that “there is a timeline on this…. It’s not an indefinite amount of time. And there will be decisions made, there’s no question about it.”
Milley’s speech underscored that of Defence Secretary James Mattis who told the same military gathering on Monday that the armed forces had “to ensure that we have military options that our president can employ if needed.” Over the past two weeks, President Trump has issued a series of belligerent tweets signalling that war on North Korea is imminent.
These preparations for conflict are being accompanied by a deluge of propaganda…