The defense secretary’s excuses are facially absurd.
In response to Jeffrey Goldberg’s release of screenshots of the infamous Signal chat this morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, currently traveling abroad in the Asia-Pacific, tweeted
So, let’s me get this straight. The Atlantic released the so-called “war plans” and those “plans” include: No names. No targets. No locations. No units. No routes. No sources. No methods. And no classified information.
Those are some really shitty war plans.
This only proves one thing: Jeff Goldberg has never seen a war plan or an “attack plan” (as he now calls it). Not even close.As I type this, my team and I are traveling the INDOPACOM region, meeting w/ Commanders (the guys who make REAL “war plans”) and talking to troops.
We will continue to do our job, while the media does what it does best: peddle hoaxes
Let’s start from a simple fact: There is almost nothing more sensitive than the timing of a combat mission that is about to start.
Such information, if disclosed to adversaries, can not only negatively affect the chances for mission success, but it can expose the young Americans we send into harm’s way to needless risk. In the case of strike missions conducted by American warplanes, the Time on Target for “WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP” would be of obvious interest to anyone coordinating or manning enemy air-defense assets.
As I wrote this morning, what Hegseth has been shown to have disclosed — information that almost certainly was developed by and taken from the very CENTCOM planners coordinating the strike operation — concerned “extremely sensitive topics that should never be discussed outside of the appropriate venue and only with those with need-to-know.”
Do not get misled by the idea that by somehow not attaching a PDF stamped “Classified Top Secret,” Hegseth didn’t do anything wrong here. Hegseth’s texts were born classified the moment he wrote them. This information by its very existence and by its definition was classified the moment Hegseth started tapping on his iPhone.
“TIME NOW (1144et): Weather is FAVORABLE. Just CONFIRMED w/CENTCOM we are a GO for mission launch,” Hegseth texted his colleagues in the hours before the U.S. surprise attack was launched, before adding:
- 1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)
- 1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)
- 1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)
- 1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)
- 1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts — also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.
- MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)
Hegseth concluded his messages by assuring his senior Trump administration colleagues, “We are currently clean on OPSEC” — i.e., operational security, which was, shall we say, very much not the case.
The defense secretary’s excuses are facially absurd.