WASHINGTON \u2014 Former Defense Secretary and CIA Director Leon Panetta condemned presumptive Republican US presidential nominee Donald Trump’s national security positions as “dangerous” and “irresponsible.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Echoing Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s lambasting of Trump in a foreign policy speech last week, Panetta,\u00a0in a CNN interview Monday,\u00a0blasted day-to-day inconsistencies in Trump’s foreign policy positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I think [former] Secretary Clinton tried to point that out last week, that this is a dangerous approach for somebody who wants to be commander-in-chief,” said Panetta, who\u00a0served alongside Clinton when she was secretary of state.\u00a0“I worry that it’s sending a signal to countries abroad that a candidate for the president of the United States really doesn’t know what he really wants to do when it comes to protecting our national security.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clinton, in a major national security address on June 2, called Trump’s ideas “dangerously incoherent” and her opponent “temperamentally unfit” to be president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes \u2014 because it’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin,” Clinton said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Monday, Panetta ripped Trump for remarking that Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia ought to have nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“That kind of attitude is an embarrassment; it’s also irresponsible,” Panetta said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Underlining Panetta’s point, that Trump’s comments have rippled across the world stage, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday defended NATO after Trump said the alliance was obsolete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked about Trump’s\u00a0comments, Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian premier who heads the 28-nation military\u00a0grouping, said: “NATO is important for the\u00a0security of the US and Europe.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking at an event in Brussels held by the Politico Europe newspaper, Stoltenberg also said that the only time NATO had invoked its collective defense clause since its formation after World War II was “in defense of the United States after the 9\/11 terrorist attacks.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Email:\u00a0jgould@defensenews.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Twitter:\u00a0@ReporterJoe<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n