Pete Hegseth Dismisses Three Senior Military Officials, Shakes Up Pentagon

Hegseth also removed Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, the chief of the U.S. Navy Reserve, and Rear Admiral Milton Sands, the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command.

- CORRESPONDENT

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed three senior military officials in a sweeping shake-up of the Pentagon's leadership, furthering what appears to be a systematic purge of figures perceived to be out of step with President Donald Trump's national security approach.

Among those removed was Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), whose ousting came just weeks after a leaked DIA assessment contradicted Trump's claim that recent U.S. airstrikes had "obliterated" Iran's nuclear capabilities. The report instead concluded that the strikes had set back Iran's program by only a few months, prompting a wave of media coverage and fierce backlash from the White House, which dismissed the findings as "flat out wrong" and accused major news outlets of spreading "fake news."