On Wednesday, the White House was leaned over a semantic argument of the defense secretary Pete Hegseth. What he published in the famous signal conversation with national security colleagues and the current famous signal conversation was not a “war plan ,, they insist.
They may be technically justified. Atlantic’s top editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s accidentally involved in the chain that it is likely to the timeline of an attack that is waiting for. However, it can prove that such detailed-F/A-18F super hornet jets should be initiated and that the MQ-9 Reaper drones will fly from land bases in the Middle East.
A complete “war plan” will undoubtedly be more specific with coordinates for weapons directions and targets. However, this is not likely to help the defense secretary because it tries to explain why it puts these details in an unqualified commercial practice that is not classified from classified internal systems used by the Pentagon when encrypted.
And it was critical when the attack was included in their messages hours before the attack began, it was critical: If this information had leaked, Houthi fighters and missile experts in the United States would have time to escape in Yemen. He showed that Mr. Hegset’s “OPSEC” or operational security in the signal chain – his own references – he fully understood the need to keep the secret of timing.
And the level of detail attracted attention: “1215et: F-18s launch (1st strike package), Mr Mr. Hegseth wrote in the conversation. “1345: ‘A trigger-based’ F-18 1. strike window begins (the target terrorist is known @ known position, so it should be in time) -Allasta Stroll Drones Launch (MQ-9S).”
Obviously, this is the most sensitive to the plans of war area. National Security Veterans say that Mr. Hegseth had almost absolutely classified data when he sends them to the group chat. Nevertheless, the problem of classification was at the center of the Trump administration’s statements that the signal conversation was a small violation.
Bu This was not classified, Mr Mr. Trump insisted on his meeting with the US ambassadors in the White House on Tuesday. “Now, if classified information is probably a little different, but I always say that you should learn from every experience.”
The White House and the National Security Authorities will not say who classifies the data or whether they did it after the attack.
Jim Himes, a representative of Connecticut, a democrat, said at a hearing with the best intelligence officials on Wednesday morning.
None of the White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt did not determine the case of Hegseth, a former national guard infantry and television commentator, who took a series of wrong steps in the office in the first two months in the office.
“Atlantic accepted: These were not ‘war plans’,” Mrs. Leavitt wrote on X.
Leaving aside the attacks on Mr. Goldberg, which has been covering national security for decades, Ms. Leavitt’s explosion was clearly contradictory by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, with statements in front of a Senate committee on Tuesday.
He acknowledged that the signal chain he was participating was real and that Mr. Goldberg’s statement was true. At first, the National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who tried to escape questions about the signal chain, accepted after confirming his participation in Mr. Ratcliffe.
Both said the information was not classified. However, when they were published, they changed their comments to say that there was no knowledge of intelligence classified in the conversation – so they did not comment on whether they had classified Pentagon operational plans.
But to test his comments to reality, think about it, a discreet test: before the attack, there was a news organization to the Pentagon or the National Security Council before the attack, and said that he was thinking of publishing such a timing and detail, and the management would ask him to stop the attack because he could endanger the attack? Or if Houthis knew that they came with their missile abilities, he could risk American pilots at risk.
The management would almost absolutely ask them not to publish – and most of the responsible news organization would take back this data until the attack was over. A scenario that has been played many times in the last few years, including operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to attack Syria and Iranian sites.
All of these argued that more than 18 Trump management officials discussed timing in a encrypted application with servers outside the United States.
