FOUR Star General James “Mad Dog” Mattis – who served as President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defence has denied claims by President Joe Biden that China spied on the U.S. with spy balloons under the previous administration, Politicalite can reveal.
Mattis – a former United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as the 26th US secretary of defense from 2017 to 2019 and helped Donald Trump drop the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB) on ISIS in Afghanistan in 2017 spent 44 years in the Marine Corps and commanded forces in the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War.
He hit back at claims made by current White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan – who claimed that after Biden took office, the U.S. “enhanced our surveillance of [its]territorial airspace.
“We enhanced our capacity to be able to detect things that the Trump administration was unable to detect.” said Sullivan.
General Mattis said he “has no knowledge of a Chinese spy balloon flying over the US during his watch”.
“Did it really happen during past administrations? Because there isn’t anybody from the past administration who is aware of it.”
“I’m not for the first two years of that administration.” He added.
SLEEPY JOE’S SPY BALLOON BLUNDER
President Biden – who made his annual State of the Union address to the American Congress last night is facing pressure by some Republicans for not ordering the balloon shot down before it made its way across the U.S. – despite Trump advising the balloon be shot down earlier in the week.
“Once it came over to the United States, from Canada, I told the Defense Department I wanted to shoot it down as soon as it was appropriate,” Biden said. The military concluded “we should not shoot it down over land, it was not a serious threat.”
In a brief exchange with reporters, Biden expressed his continued displeasure with Beijing. Asked why China launched the balloon over the U.S., he replied simply, “Because they´re the Chinese.”
Sources told Politicalite last night that China is now refusing to take calls from U.S. Secretary of Defence and is “childishly” demanding the spy balloon be returned to them.
CHINA SPIED ON 21 U.S. BASES
A CHINESE Spy balloon that was spotted across the US last week passed over 21 American military bases, U.S. sources have confirmed to Politicalite as Joe Biden has been accused of a “dereliction of duty” over the massive security breach.
The spy balloon – that was eventually shot down by brave U.S. military top guns in F-22 fighter jets has now been recovered with hopes that the U.S. can gather information on the sinister Chinese surveillance equipment.
One U.S. military official told Politicalite that the debris field was spread out over seven miles of ocean, and multiple U.S. military vessels were on site.
Some U.S. commentators have described the balloon saga as a “dereliction of duty of this far-left administration” as former U.S. President Donald Trump had ordered the shooting down if the balloon a week before Sleepy Joe agreed to make the order.
One U.S. source told Politicalite “We have an open southern border and now we have China floating spy balloons across the continental United States without any fear of recourse by the Biden regime.
“They successfully took it down, and I want to compliment our aviators who did it,” Biden said on Saturday.
Multiple fighter and refueling aircraft were involved in the mission, but only one — an F-22 fighter jet from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia — took the shot at 2:39 p.m. (1939 GMT), using a single AIM-9X supersonic, heat-seeking, air-to-air missile, a senior U.S. military official said.
China strongly condemned the military strike on an airship that it says was used for meteorological and other scientific purposes, and which it said had strayed into U.S. airspace “completely accidentally” — claims flatly dismissed by U.S. officials.
“China had clearly asked the U.S. to handle this properly in a calm, professional and restrained manner,” China’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “The U.S. had insisted on using force, obviously overreacting.”
While Saturday’s shootdown concludes the military dimension to the spying saga, Biden is likely to continue to face intense political scrutiny from Republican opponents in Congress who argue he failed to act quickly enough.
A senior administration official said after shooting down the balloon, the U.S. government spoke directly with China about the action. The State Department also briefed allies and partners around the world, the official said.
The balloon entered U.S. airspace in Alaska on Jan. 28 before moving into Canadian airspace on Jan 30. It then re-entered U.S. airspace over northern Idaho on Jan. 31, a U.S. defense official said. Once it crossed over U.S. land, it did not return to open waters, making a shootdown difficult.
U.S. officials did not publicly disclose the balloon’s presence over the United States until Thursday.
“It’s clear the Biden administration had hoped to hide this national security failure from Congress and the American people,” said U.S.
Representative Mike Rogers, a Republican who leads the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.
Biden’s emphasis on Saturday that — days ago — he ordered the balloon shot down as soon as possible could be an effort to respond to such critics.
Former President Donald Trump, Biden’s potential rival in the 2024 election, called earlier this week for the balloon to be shot down, and has sought to portray himself as stronger than Biden on China. The U.S. relationship with China is likely to be a major theme of the 2024 presidential race.
Washington had called the balloon’s appearance a “clear violation” of U.S. sovereignty and notified Beijing about the shootdown on Saturday, a U.S. official said.
Still, officials on Saturday appeared to play down the balloon’s impact on U.S. national security.
“Our assessment — and we’re going to learn more as we pick up the debris — was that it was not likely to provide significant additive value over and above other (Chinese) intel capability, such as satellites in low-Earth orbit,” the senior U.S. defense official said.
A photographer who witnessed the shootdown said a stream came from a jet and hit the balloon, but there was no explosion. It then began to fall.
The Pentagon assesses that the balloon was part of a fleet of Chinese spy balloons. On Friday, it said another Chinese balloon was flying over Latin America.
“Over the past several years, Chinese balloons have previously been spotted over countries across five continents, including in East Asia, South Asia and Europe,” the U.S. official said.
The suspected spy balloon prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a visit to China this week that had been expected to start on Friday.
The postponement of Blinken’s trip, which had been agreed to in November by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, was a blow to those who saw it as an overdue opportunity to stabilize an increasingly fractious relationship between the two countries.
China is keen for a stable U.S. relationship so it can focus on its economy, battered by the now-abandoned zero-COVID policy and neglected by foreign investors alarmed by what they see as a return of state intervention in the market
