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Patrick Shanahan: Trump names acting defence secretary | |
(about 2 hours later) | |
US President Donald Trump has forced Defence Secretary James Mattis to leave his post early, appointing an acting successor to take over in the new year. | |
General Mattis, 68, strongly hinted at policy differences with Mr Trump when he resigned on Friday. | |
He offered to stay in the job until February, but will now leave on 1 January after Mr Trump reportedly balked at media coverage of his exit. | |
Deputy Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan, 46, will take over the role. | |
Mr Trump has lauded his achievements and described him as "very talented". | |
Mr Shanahan, a former executive at the aerospace giant Boeing, joined the Pentagon in July 2017 after Mr Trump nominated him. | |
He was reportedly a vocal supporter of the president's plan to establish a sixth branch of the armed forces, known as the "space force". | |
Originally from Washington state, Mr Shanahan studied mechanical engineering and business at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and joined Boeing as an engineer in 1986. | |
The hammer comes down | |
Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington | |
Donald Trump had initially framed James Mattis' departure as a "retirement", but his resignation letter - full of implied criticism of the president's foreign policy - showed that was not the case. | |
The president seldom handles rebukes kindly, so it became increasingly unlikely amid the growing furore that the former general would not be allowed his requested two-month departure timeframe. | |
On Sunday morning, the hammer came down - as is the new norm - via a presidential tweet. | |
Mr Mattis's replacement, Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan, spent most of his career working for Boeing. | |
Having a former executive of a major defence contractor running the Pentagon, even on a temporary basis, is unusual, to say the least. It's a job usually held by politicians with military oversight experience. | |
Meanwhile, the president appears to be trying to douse the fire that started this personnel crisis. He also tweeted on Sunday that the US withdrawal from Syria - abruptly announced last week - would be "slow and highly coordinated". | |
Given the Mattis news, that may not be enough to calm the nerves of allies and assuage the anger of US foreign policy hands. It is, however, a start. | |
Gen Mattis resigned shortly after President Trump announced his decision to withdraw all US troops from Syria. | |
While not mentioning it in his resignation letter directly, Gen Mattis has previously warned that it would be a "strategic blunder". | |
In his letter, he also said the president had the right to appoint someone "whose views are better aligned with yours". | |
But shortly after announcing Mr Shanahan's appointment on Sunday, Mr Trump moved to calm widespread concerns over the pullout which he initially said would be "rapid". | |
Mr Trump said on Twitter that he had spoken with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey about "our mutual involvement in Syria, & the slow and highly coordinated withdrawal of US troops from the area". |