Washington – US Defence Secretary Mark
Esper said on Wednesday he does not support invoking the
Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty forces to quell civil
unrest for now, despite President Donald Trump's threats to
militarise America's response to mass protests.
Trump said this week he could use military forces in states
that fail to crack down on sometimes violent protests over the
killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of a
white police officer in Minneapolis.
"The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement
role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in
the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of
those situations now," Esper told a news briefing.
"I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act."
To deploy the military on US soil for law enforcement
purposes, Trump would need to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act – something last done in 1992 in response to the Rodney King
riots in Los Angeles.
The military has prepositioned 1,600 active duty forces on
the outskirts of Washington DC to deploy if needed.
Esper said he regretted using the term "battlespace" this
week to describe areas gripped by protests.
"In retrospect, I would use different wording so as not to
distract from the more important matters at hand or allow some
to suggest that we are militarizing the issue," he said.
Trump's threats to deploy active duty troops – even in
states that oppose its use to address civil unrest – has
stirred alarm within the US military and in Congress, where a
top Republican warned it could easily make troops "political
pawns".
Esper said he was unaware that he would be part of Trump's
politically charged photo opportunity on Monday, when law
enforcement forcibly cleared a park outside the White House of
peaceful protesters so that the president could take a picture
in front of a church holding a Bible.
He acknowledged the difficulty of deploying the military
without entering the political fray.
"I work very hard to keep the department out of politics,
which is very hard these days as we move closer and closer to an
election," Esper said.
Retired Navy admiral Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was "sickened" to see how law
enforcement – including the National Guard – had cleared the
area and warned against over-use of the US military.
"Our fellow citizens are not the enemy, and must never
become so," Mullen wrote.