Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse provides remarks at a ceremony at Joint-Base Anacostia-Bolling in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 2, 2024. (Department of Defense)
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse whose agency oversaw the initial assessment of the U.S. bombing raid of three nuclear sites in Iran, a senior defense official confirmed Friday.
“Lt. Gen. Kruse will no longer serve as [Defense Intelligence Agency] director,” the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in a statement.
The official did not provide more information about the decision.
The firing comes months after the agency, a part of the Defense Department, received backlash from President Donald Trump’s administration for its assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from the U.S. airstrikes.
Initial reports on the strike indicated Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed and intelligence suggested uranium was moved from the sites prior to the U.S. strikes. A preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency assessed in the days following that the airstrikes set Iran’s nuclear program back by months but did not eliminate it.
The assessment was in contrast to claims by Trump and Hegseth that Iran’s capabilities had been “obliterated.”
The Pentagon’s top leaders came out at the time to emphasize how effective the military mission was and show the destruction it caused.
“Ultimately, we’re here to clarify what these weapons are capable of, which anyone with … two eyes, some ears and a brain can recognize that kind of firepower with that specificity at that location and others, is going to have a devastating effect,” Hegseth told reporters in June during a news conference at the Pentagon about the attack on the Iran sites.
Since Trump’s return to office in January, the administration has fired a slate of the most senior military officers. Some of the firings include Air Force Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations, Adm. Linda Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard, and Air Force Gen. James Slife, the service’s vice chief of staff.
Gen. David Allvin, the Air Force chief of staff, announced Monday in a prepared statement from the service that he would retire sometime close to Nov. 1. The statement from the Air Force did not provide a reason for the decision. He will continue to serve as chief of staff until a replacement is confirmed.
Allvin was informed last week that he would be asked to retire and Hegseth wanted to go in another direction, The Washington Post reported. As a trade-off, the Pentagon would allow Allvin to announce the decision.
