BBC News
RootsUS Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the head of the Pentagon’s intelligence agency a few weeks after the White House rebuke of the Review of Review assessing the impact of US attacks on Iran.
The Pentagon said in a statement that the Lieutenant General Jeffrey Crust would no longer serve as the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Two other senior military commanders have also been excluded by the Pentagon.
The Defense Department has not given any immediate explanation on firing.
In June, President Donald Trump Was pushed back Figrantly on the report of a leaked DIA, which found that attacks on Iran only set their nuclear program back for months. The White House declared the agency’s assessment “flat out wrong”.
Trump had declared atomic sites “completely destroyed” in Iran, and accused the media of “attempts to reduce one of the most successful military attacks in history”.
Speaking at the NATO summit at that time, Hegseth said that the report was on “low intelligence” and the FBI was investigating the leak.
The exit of the cross was first reported by the Washington Post.
The DIA is part of the Pentagon and specializes in military intelligence to support operation. It collects large amounts of technical intelligence, but is different from other agencies such as CIA.
It is understood that Hegseth also ordered the removal of the commander of the US Naval Reserve and the Navy Special War Commander, an anonymous source told Reuters on Friday.
In a statement, American senator Mark Warner warned that the dismissal of the cross was a sign that Trump was “a dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test for our country”.
Trump has removed several officers whose analysis has been seen on obstacles with the President.
In July, Trump said that he had ordered his team to “immediately” the labor statistics Commissioner Erica McNerfar, after a report it was found that the increase in the job had slowed down.
And in April, Trump fired General Timothy Hug as director of the National Security Agency, along with more than a dozen employees at the White House National Security Council.
Hegseth has also pushed several military officers in Pentagon. In February, he fired the Air Force General CQ Brown, who was rejected with five other admirals and generals.
