Trump-Iran news: President claims he called off airstrikes on Tehran after general told him '150 people would die'

What a time for the Pentagon to be without a permanent defense secretary. 

The military's acting representative, Patrick Shanahan (pictured below), stepped down this week and the man tapped to replace him on an interim basis appears to face legal hurdles that could initially prevent him from serving more than about six more weeks. It's an unusual level of uncertainty for one of the most important jobs in the administration. 

"This is a very difficult time. With everything going on in Iran and all the provocations and counteractions, and to have no Secretary of Defense at this time is appalling," said Chuck Schumer on Thursday. "It shows the chaos in this administration. They have so many empty positions, revolving doors, in the most sensitive of security positions." 

Shanahan and his planned replacement, army secretary Mark Esper, have been attending White House and other meetings, including sessions to debate how the military should respond to Iran's shoot-down of an American drone. 

Esper is slated to take over as acting defense secretary at midnight on Sunday, and then head out Tuesday to a meeting of NATO defense ministers. There it will be critical for Esper to convince allies that he is now in charge, and that the US national security leadership is stable and able to make decisions when faced with escalating threats from Iran, amid questions from a wary Congress. 

Meanwhile, inside the Pentagon, lawyers are debating how to get Esper through what will be a difficult legal and Congressional confirmation process. Defense officials said on Thursday that so far they don't yet have a clear way forward. 

The key problem is that Trump never formally nominated Shanahan for the defence job. He announced his intention to do so, but as the months went on it never happened, and officials repeatedly said the vetting was dragging on. On Monday, Shanahan stepped down saying he wanted to spare his family as details of domestic problems linked to his messy divorce nearly a decade ago became public. 

Trump immediately named Esper as the new acting secretary, but because of limitations laid out in court decisions and legislation governing how top level vacancies are filled, he will only be allowed to serve for about six weeks in that temporary capacity.

Law prohibits Esper from being nominated for the job while also serving as the acting secretary. If he is nominated, he'll have to step down and move to another job until the Senate votes on his confirmation. And anyone chosen to fill in temporarily - even for a short time while the confirmation process goes on - will have limited authorities and won't have all of the decision-making power that a defense secretary needs when his nation is at war in several countries and conducting major military operations in dozens of others. 

Normally, senior leaders can be "acting" for 210 days, but because Shanahan was never nominated the clock on Esper started ticking on 1 January, when previous defence secretary Jim Mattis resigned. That would force Esper out of the acting role by 30 July. 

Adding to the problem, is that even if Trump wants to nominate Esper (pictured below), he'll have to come up with someone to fill the job, also in an acting capacity, for an undetermined amount of time. Because Trump never nominated anyone to replace Shanahan as deputy defence secretary, which was his previous job, there is no one to easily step up and fill in as acting secretary during that confirmation process. 

While lawmakers have expressed initial support for Esper, who is well known on Capitol Hill and previously served on committees as legislative staff, there is no guarantee he'll get a quick approval. 

As a former executive at defence contractor Raytheon, Esper may have to excuse himself from decisions involving the company. And that could include sensitive, top level negotiations with Turkey over its decision to buy a Russian missile defence system, and America's counter offer of the Raytheon-made Patriot surface-to-air weapon.

Lawmakers have also expressed impatience with the large number of acting executives in the Trump administration. Under Trump at least 22 of the 42 people in top Cabinet jobs have been acting, or just over half. 

In contrast, data compiled by incoming Yale political science professor Christina Kinane, suggests that from 1977 through mid-April of this year - the administrations of Jimmy Carter through the first half of Trump's - 266 individuals held Cabinet posts. Seventy-nine of them held their jobs on an acting basis, or three in 10. 

Trump has said he likes naming acting officials, telling reporters in January, "It gives me more flexibility." 

The practice lets Trump quickly, if temporarily, install allies in important positions while circumventing the Senate confirmation process, which can be risky with Republicans running the chamber by a slim 53-47 margin.

Iranian state television's website has published images it says show debris from the US military drone the regime's Revolutionary Guard shot down.

The pictures show what appears to be the skin of the US Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk without indicating where the footage was recorded. The photographs did not show any circuit boards, wiring or electronic equipment. 

Meanwhile, Iran has told the US via Swiss ambassador Markus Leitner that Washington will be responsible for the consequences of any military action against Iran, the Fars news agency reports.

Because Washington and Tehran have had no formal diplomatic ties since 1979, the Swiss ambassador in Tehran represents American interests in the Islamic Republic.

The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that Iran's foreign ministry, which summoned the ambassador, had told the envoy that Iran was not pursuing war with the United States.

Separately, IRNA quoted Mohsen Baharvand, director of the Iranian foreign ministry department for the Americas, as saying: "If the side facing us take provocative and unthought-out actions, they will receive a reciprocal response whose consequences are unpredictable, and the loss and damage of it will be on all sides."

British Airways has joined the likes of Lufthansa, Qantas Airways and KLM in re-routing planes to avoid flying over the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf of Oman as a result of the US-Iran tensions.

Abu Dhabi-based long-haul carrier Etihad meanwhile said it has "contingency plans" in place after the US barred American-registered planes from flying through Iranian-administered airspace in the Persian Gulf. 

Here's our travel correspondent Simon Calder with the latest.

The head of the Iran Revolutionary Guard's aerospace division says the country had warned a US military surveillance drone several times before launching a missile at it. 

General Amir Ali Hajizadeh made the comment in an interview with Iranian state television on Friday. Debris from what Iranian authorities described as pieces of the US Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk lay behind him. 

Hajizadeh told state TV: "Unfortunately they did not answer." 

He added Iran collected the debris from its territorial waters, contradicting the US military's claim the drone was in international airspace over the Strait of Hormuz when it was shot down. 

Meanwhile, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, commenting on the situation in the Gulf, said "I have only one strong recommendation: nerves of steel".

At 10 Downing Street, Britain's prime minister Theresa May's team are in constant contact with Washington over the unfolding situation, according to a spokesperson.

Stepping away from the brink briefly, here's some non-Iran news concerning the Trump administration.

The president's beloved daughter Ivanka Trump has been found to be in violated of the Hatch Act by the US Office of the Special Counsel and should face disciplinary action.

The ethics watchdog believes the senior White House adviser broke its guidelines by promoting her father's business interests on Twitter while serving in her official capacity. The same body made the same complaint about Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway last week, calling for her dismissal.

A couple of lighter moments from the president's press conference with Justin Trudeau yesterday.

The Canadian PM had the audacity to cough in front of Trump, causing his Washington counterpart to wince but not berate him, as he did to his acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney when the latter's hacking interrupted his remarks about the possible release of his financial records during an interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC last week.

The president also showed off his new red, white and blue design for Air Force One, beaming at a model of the plane like a proud schoolboy showing off his entry for the annual science fair.

Here's Greg Evans on the latest twist in Coughgate.

In Alabama, disgraced Republican Roy Moore has announced his intention to run once again for the state Senate, despite being accused by six women of pursuing sexual relationships with them when they were teenagers as young as 14 during his tenure as assistant district attorney in his 30s.

The news will annoy Trump, who tweeted in late May effectively ordering Moore not to try again for the Senate after he lost a 2017 special election to Democrat Doug Jones.

Here's more from Chris Riotta.

Apparently Jerrold Nadler and the House Judiciary Committee knew full well that Hope Hicks' eight-hour appearance before the panel on Wednesday would be a farce - that was the point.

The former communications director was unable to answer any meaningful questions about obstruction of justice arising from the Mueller report after the White House invoked executive privilege - even where her desk had been situated - but the Democrats knew this would be the case and were merely seeking to "dramatise it for the court" with one eye on future legal action.  

Nadler also says the Democrats will not pursue impeachment proceedings against Trump until its legal battle to secure testimony from another ex-White House aide, Don McGahn, is resolved.

"We want to go to court now. We want to unlock this now," he says.

Here's more on Hicks, who refused to answer no fewer than 155 questions.

Tech giant Apple is meanwhile begging the Trump administration not to drag its iPhones into the president's trade war with China.

This, from Fox's Mark Levin, is very, very rich indeed.

I'll just leave this here.