❓WHAT HAPPENED: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), who conducted the leaked initial assessment of U.S. strikes on Iran earlier this year.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Pentagon officials.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The firing was announced on Friday in Washington, D.C.
💬KEY QUOTE: “It was preliminary, a day and a half after the actual strike… it admits itself, in writing, that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make such an assessment.” – Pete Hegseth on the leaked Iran strike assessment.
🎯IMPACT: A criminal investigation was previously launched to uncover the source of the DIA leak.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday dismissed Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, the head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), according to White House and Pentagon officials. The announcement did not include a specific reason for Kruse’s removal, though Congressional officials cited a “lack of confidence”—likely stemming from the leaked initial assessment of the U.S. military strikes against Iran’s nuclear program earlier this year.
The leaked assessment appeared to contradict President Donald J. Trump’s claim that the facilities had been “obliterated,” suggesting, instead, the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had only a limited impact. This preliminary assessment has since been discounted by both other U.S. intelligence sources, as well as Israeli and independent analysis.
The DIA’s preliminary report, conducted just 24 hours after the strikes, was marked as “low confidence” and stated that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back only by several months. Pentagon officials later criticized the report for being incomplete and uncoordinated with the broader intelligence community. Subsequently, a criminal investigation was launched to uncover the source of the leak.
“It was preliminary, a day and a half after the actual strike… it admits itself, in writing, that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make such an assessment,” Hegseth told reporters following the leak.
Kruse had served as the agency’s director since February 2024 and was expected to remain until 2027.
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