US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ousted Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse after an intelligence leak downplayed damage from American strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, enraging President Trump.
Washington was rocked Friday by another shake-up in America’s military leadership as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), following a dispute over leaked assessments of U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear program.
The decision, confirmed to the Associated Press by senior officials, comes just months after classified findings were leaked to CNN and the New York Times. The report claimed that U.S. strikes had set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months—an assessment that directly contradicted President Donald Trump’s public statements that the strikes had “completely destroyed” Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Trump lashed out at the coverage, branding it “fake news” and accusing the media of trying to discredit “one of the most successful military strikes in history.”
The intelligence row gained further attention after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in a Fox News interview, admitted that the U.S. strikes had caused “serious” damage to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure—fueling Trump’s demand that CNN issue an apology.
At a press briefing in June, Hegseth slammed what he described as media “anti-military bias” but offered no concrete evidence that Iran’s production facilities had been destroyed.
Kruse’s dismissal is part of a broader pattern of upheaval: it follows the early retirement of Air Force Gen. David Allvin and sweeping budget cuts to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Together, the moves highlight a Trump-era overhaul of America’s intelligence and defense hierarchy, where loyalty and alignment with White House messaging have become critical factors.
With tensions still simmering over Iran’s nuclear ambitions and U.S. credibility on the line, the firing signals that dissent within the intelligence community will no longer be tolerated.
