Washington – Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, dismissed Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Pentagon Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the officials of the White House and the Pentagon, making it another one in a series of higher officers who have been removed under the surveillance of Hegseth.
The dismissal follows a controversial initial evaluation by the agency in June that indicates that the strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities had a limited effect, apparently contradicting the statement of President Donald Trump at the time they had been “erased.”
Pentagon officials and the White House issued brief statements that did not provide any justification for dismissal, but said that Kruse “will no longer serve as a director.” The day did not respond immediately to a request for comments. Kruse’s dismissal was first reported by Washington Post.
Administration officials did not give another reason for Kruse’s dismissal, who had been at work since February 2024 and was normally expected to serve until 2027. Congress officials also confirmed the dismissal and told that they were told that it was for a “lack of confidence”, a soft expression that the military often uses to cover any number of reasons why someone was eliminated.
Kruse joins a growing list of generals and upper admirals dismissed under Hegseth, including the former president of the Joint Chiefs, the general who directed the National Security Agency and the United States Cyber Command, the Admiral of the Navy and the head of the Coast Guard of the United States. Earlier this week, the head of the Air Force, General David Allvin, unexpectedly announced that he would retire in November, approximately two years before the usual four years for a service manager.
Immediately after the strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, the day completed an initial and classified evaluation of the operation of the operation. That evaluation was marked as “low trust” because there was only 24 hours after those strikes. But he indicated that Iran’s nuclear program had been delayed several months, according to three people with knowledge of the report, NBC News reported at that time. That disagreed with Trump, who commented immediately after the attacks that nuclear sites had been “totally erased.”
The dissemination of day evaluation led to a strong rejection of Trump’s White House, and officials complain that the report had leaked. Days later, Hegseth spoke with the media.
“It was preliminary, a day and a half after the real strike, when it is admitted in writing that requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to do such evaluation,” Hegseth told Pentagon journalists. “He points out that he has not been coordinated with the intelligence community at all, there is little confidence in this particular report.”
