Republicans react with concern about new details on posts about weapons used and timing of Yemen attack
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth came under increasing scrutiny after more details emerged Wednesday showing that he posted plans of an imminent military strike against Houthi militants, including the timing and weapon systems, on an unclassified group chat used by senior administration officials.
Several Democrats called for his resignation, saying Hegseth had flouted longstanding security procedures for handling sensitive military information. And the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee sent a letter Wednesday requesting the Pentagon inspector general to investigate the chat.
It asks for an assessment of Defense Department policies on sharing of sensitive and classified information on nongovernmental networks and messaging services and to examine whether any individuals transferred classified information to unclassified systems.
“The information as published recently appears to me to be of such a sensitive nature that based on my knowledge, I would have wanted it classified,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), who chairs the committee told reporters. “If mistakes were made…they should be acknowledged.”
The new messages made public by the Atlantic magazine Wednesday showed that Hegseth texted details to other senior administration officials about the specific times that F-18s, MQ-9 Reaper drones and Tomahawk cruise missiles would be used in the attack and mentions intelligence that an unnamed target of the strikes was at a “known location.”
Such information is normally guarded carefully by the Pentagon before imminent strikes to avoid disclosures that could help adversaries.
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“The Signal incident is what happens when you have the most unqualified Secretary of Defense we’ve ever seen,” [Sen. Mark] Kelly wrote on X on Wednesday. “We’re lucky it didn’t cost any servicemembers their lives, but for the safety of our military and our country, Secretary Hegseth needs to resign.”
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Earlier this month, the Pentagon sent an advisory to all military personnel warning that a “vulnerability” had been identified in Signal and warned against using it for classified information.
“It borders on incompetence,” Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator and defense secretary during the Obama administration, said of Hegseth’s texts. “It’s certainly reckless.”
Pete Hegseth Comes Under Scrutiny for Texting Strike Details as Signal Chat Fallout Grows – WSJ