Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a top Pentagon official whose preliminary report on damage to Iran’s nuclear sites by U.S. strikes allegedly angered President Donald Trump.
From February 2024 until Friday, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse was head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, whose early assessment of the June bombings found damage to be not as severe as the president claimed. In response, Trump fumed about news stories on that report by The New York Times and CNN.
Hegseth, a former Fox News host, fired Kruse due to “loss of confidence” in the 34-year Air Force veteran, two people familiar with the move told The Washington Post.
The Defense Department declined to comment to the Daily Beast on the reason for Kruse’s firing, candidates for his replacement, and whether he would retire.
In a statement, Virginia Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the firing “underscores the Trump administration’s dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country.”
The Pentagon’s initial report found that the strikes only set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months and was not the “complete and total obliteration” Trump had bragged about.
Warner, in a press release, said the DIA’s assessment was the type of “honest, fact-based analysis” which is “exactly what we should want from our intelligence agencies, regardless of whether it flatters the White House narrative.”
“When expertise is cast aside and intelligence is distorted or silenced, our adversaries gain the upper hand and America is left less safe,” he warned.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast asking if Trump ordered the firing.
Kruse’s firing is the second by the Defense Department of a senior Pentagon official since Trump’s inauguration. In early April, it removed the head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, Gen. Timothy Haugh—reportedly after right-wing activist Laura Loomer accused him of being disloyal to Trump. Also shown the door then were five National Security Council aides.
Kruse, a Gulf War veteran, and Haugh, who deployed to Iraq, were both appointed during the Biden administration.
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