- Mark Esper says Stephen Miller wanted to capture the ISIS leader's head and dip it in pig's blood.
- That's considered unholy in Islam, and Miller wanted to use it as a warning to other terrorists.
- Trump himself previously suggested shooting terrorists with bullets dipped in pig's blood.
Former White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller wanted to capture ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's head, dip it in pig's blood, and parade it around as a warning to other terrorists, according to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
Esper's forthcoming memoir, an excerpt of which was published in the New York Times on Thursday, details an October 2019 meeting in the Situation Room as Trump and other top national security officials watched drone footage of the raid that ultimately resulted in al-Baghdadi's death.
"He died after running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way," former President Donald Trump declared in a press conference following the raid.
Even while still working for Trump, Esper denied knowledge of any whimpering, and said it would have been impossible to hear from the drone feed that he and other officials watched.
Miller reportedly made the suggestion at that meeting, prompting Esper to fire back that such an action would constitute a "war crime." The former senior advisor to Trump denied the exchange to the Times, calling Esper a "moron," and representatives for Miller did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
—The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) October 27, 2019
Islam forbids the consumption of pork and considers pigs to be unclean, and dipping the self-styled caliph's head in the substance would've constituted a religiously-tinged insult.
And according to the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court, it is a war crime to subject "persons who are in the power of an adverse party to physical mutilation."
Esper also alleges that Miller wanted to send 250,000 troops to the US-Mexico border, claiming that a large caravan of migrants was en route. Esper said on Thursday that he was "flabbergasted" by the idea.
Trump himself had previously raised using pig's blood against Muslims in the wake of a terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain in August 2017.
"Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught," he tweeted at the time. "There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!"
Trump was referring to a long-debunked story that Army General John Joseph Pershing, then Governor of the US-occupied Philippines, used bullets dipped in pig's blood against Muslim Moro tribesmen. He had also told the story at several rallies during his 2016 presidential campaign.