US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed the head of the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lt Gen Jeffery Kruse, along with two other senior military commanders. While the defence department has not provided an official reason for the firings, the move comes just weeks after a DIA assessment on the impact of American strikes against Iran was publicly rebuked by the White House.
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The controversy stems from a leaked DIA report in June which concluded that the attacks had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a matter of months. President Donald Trump vehemently pushed back, declaring the agency’s assessment “flat out wrong” and insisting the nuclear sites were “completely destroyed.” At the time, Hegseth described the report as being based on “low intelligence” and announced an FBI probe into the leak.
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This high-profile ousting is part of a wider leadership change within the military, with sources confirming Hegseth also ordered the removal of the chief of US Naval reserves and the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command. The decision has drawn sharp criticism, with Senator Mark Warner warning that the sacking indicates President Trump’s “dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country.”
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This action is consistent with a pattern of dismissals within the Trump administration of officials whose analyses have appeared to conflict with the president’s narrative. In previous months, Trump has fired the Commissioner of Labor Statistics after a report of slowing job growth, the director of the National Security Agency, and several high-ranking generals and admirals at the Pentagon.
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