■ Gen. Mark Milley said calls to his Chinese counterpart were within the duties of his job.
ATHENS, Greece — The top U.S. military officer said Friday that calls he made to his Chinese counterpart in the final months of Donald Trump’s presidency were “perfectly within the duties and responsibilities” of his job.
In his first public comments on the conversations, Gen. Mark Milley said such calls are “routine” and were done “to reassure both allies and adversaries in this case in order to ensure strategic stability.”
Milley has been at the center of a firestorm amid reports he made two calls to Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army to assure him that the U.S. was not going to suddenly go to war with or attack China.
Descriptions of the calls made last October and in January were first aired in excerpts from the forthcoming book “Peril” by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.
The book says Milley told Li that he would warn Li in the event of an attack.
Milley on Friday offered only a brief defense of his calls, saying he plans a deeper discussion about the matter for Congress when he testifies at a hearing.