Pentagon Intelligence Chief and Two Others Dismissed

Darwin, August 24 —Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, recently dismissed head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed the head of the Pentagon’s intelligence agency along with two other high-ranking military officials.

This move marks the latest in a series of personnel removals under President Donald Trump’s administration within the Pentagon.

The dismissed officials include Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Chief of the U.S. Naval Reserve, and the Commander of Naval Special Warfare Command.

No official reason has been given for their removal.

U.S. Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, criticized the move, saying, “Firing a senior national security official reflects the Trump administration’s dangerous pattern of treating intelligence not as a tool for national security, but as a loyalty test.”

The dismissals are being viewed as retaliatory actions by the Trump administration against military, intelligence, and law enforcement officials whose perspectives conflict with Trump’s.

Previously, in April, Trump fired General Timothy Hogg, Director of the National Security Agency.

In February, Hegseth removed General C.Q. Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — an unprecedented shake-up in U.S. military leadership.

While the exact reason behind Kruse’s dismissal remains unclear, it comes shortly after a classified DIA assessment was leaked to the media.

That assessment claimed that U.S. airstrikes on June 22 had damaged three Iranian nuclear facilities but only delayed Tehran’s nuclear program by a few months.

This directly contradicted Trump’s public claim that the targets had been “completely destroyed.”

The leaked assessment reportedly angered Trump.

The White House labeled the leaked intelligence “completely false” and Trump attacked the media outlets that published the reports, calling them “garbage” and “fake news.”

The Trump administration is undertaking a wide-scale purge of U.S. military and intelligence officials, claiming it is part of efforts to downsize the federal government, reduce the central budget, and combat the “politicization or weaponization” of intelligence.