By Olivier Acuña Barba •
Published: 23 Aug 2025 • 23:51
• 2 minutes read
Pete Hegseth says the Pentagon knows China would win a war against the United States anytime | Photo: Youtube Interview Nov 2024
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of American damage to Iranian nuclear sites angered President Donald Trump, according to sources quoted by AP. However, Reuters reports the reasons for the dismissal are unknown.
Two people familiar with the decision and a White House official told AP, on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss it publicly, that Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency, AP reported.
Carla Babb, a veteran Military News journalist, wrote on X that “a DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency) spokesperson tells me that Lt. Gen. Kruse is no longer the Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency. Deputy Director Christine Bordine has assumed the role of Acting Director of DIA ‘effective immediately’”. However, Reuters wrote, “it was not immediately clear why Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, who led the Defence Intelligence Agency, was fired.”
Dangerous habit of testing loyalty
Hegseth‘s purge broadened. One U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that in addition to Kruse, Hegseth had also ordered the removal of the chief of U.S. Naval Reserves and the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command. “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 U.S. Senator Mark Warner, who is the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The firing was first reported by the Washington Post.
In June, President Donald Trump had pushed back strongly on a leaked DIA report that found that attacks on Iran had only set back its nuclear programme by months. The White House declared the agency’s assessment “flat out wrong”, the BBC wrote. Trump had declared the nuclear sites in Iran “completely destroyed” and had accused the media of “an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history”.
In a statement, US Senator Mark Warner warned that Kruse’s sacking was a sign that Trump had a “dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country”. Trump has removed several officials whose analysis has been seen to be at odds with him.
