Pete Hegseth fired Lt Gen Jeffrey Kruse as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency after the DIA's preliminary assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes angered President Trump. The assessment, leaked to the media, concluded Iran's nuclear program was delayed by only a few months, contradicting statements by Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the program was obliterated. Hegseth publicly criticized the press for focusing on the preliminary findings and reiterated that the strikes were historically successful without presenting direct evidence of destruction. The firing follows broader recent shakeups across US military and intelligence leadership.
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has fired a general whose agency's initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes angered Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official. Lt Gen Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The firing is the latest upheaval in the US military and intelligence agencies, and comes a few months after details of the preliminary assessment leaked to the media. It found that Iran's nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the US strikes, contradicting assertions from Trump and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The Republican US president, who had pronounced the Iranian program completely and fully obliterated, rejected the report.
In a news conference following the June strikes, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of Iranian nuclear production facilities. You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated choose your word. This was an historically successful attack, Hegseth said then.
#defense-intelligence-agency #iran-nuclear-program #trump-administration-firings #intelligence-community-shakeup
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