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WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered , 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 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the people, who spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.
Hegseth also fired Vice Adm. Nancy Lacore, who is chief of the Navy Reserve, as well as Rear Adm. Milton Sands, a Navy SEAL officer who oversees Naval Special Warfare Command, another U.S. official said.
No reasons were given for their firings, the latest in a series of steps , intelligence officials and other perceived critics of Trump, who has . The administration also this week from additional current and former national security officials.
Taken together, the moves could chill dissent and send a signal against reaching conclusions at odds with Trump’s interests.
Trump decried agency’s initial findings on US strikes on Iran
Kruse’s firing comes two months after details of a preliminary assessment of leaked to the media. It found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the military effort, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Republican president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejected the report. His oft-repeated criticism of the DIA analysis built on his , including one published in 2017 that said Russia interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence — which is responsible for coordinating the work of 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA — has been meant to cast doubt on those previous findings.
Following the June strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of the facilities.
“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was a historically successful attack,” Hegseth said at a news conference at the time.
Democrats raise concerns about implications of key firing
While the Pentagon has offered no details on the firings, Democrats in Congress have raised alarm over the precedent that Kruse’s ouster sets for the intelligence community.
“The firing of yet another senior national security official underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country,” said Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on the administration to show why Kruse was fired or “otherwise, we can only assume that this is another politically motivated decision intended to create an atmosphere of fear” within the intelligence community.
Trump has a history of removing government officials . Earlier this month, after a lousy jobs report, he fired the official in charge of the data. His administration also has stopped , and removed from government sites.
Trump administration makes series of military and intelligence changes
The new firings culminate a week of broad Trump administration changes to the intelligence community and new shake-ups to military leadership.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced this week that it would and , a tactic the administration uses against those it sees as foes. The Pentagon also said the Air Force’s top uniformed officer, Gen. David Allvin, two years early.
Hegseth and Trump have been aggressive in dismissing top military officials, often without formal explanation.
The administration has as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the Navy’s top officer, the Air Force’s second highest-ranking officer, and the top lawyers for three military service branches.
In April, Hegseth as head of the National Security Agency and Vice Adm. , who was a senior official at NATO.
No public explanations have been offered by the Pentagon for any of the firings, though some of the officers were believed by the administration to endorse diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump has demanded government agencies .
The ousters of Kruse, Lacore and Sands were reported earlier by The Washington Post.
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