When are classified war plans neither ‘classified' nor ‘war plans'
It's been a hell of a week. As such, this is a special edition of the Pentagon Rundown that focuses solely on the continuing debate within the national security community about whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth improperly shared classified information about pending air and missile strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, first reported on Monday that he had inadvertently been invited to join a group chat on the Signal messaging app that included Hegseth and other top officials from President Donald Trump's administration. Goldberg also wrote that Hegseth had shared 'war plans' with the chat group on March 15 about forthcoming strikes in Yemen. (The phrase 'war plans' has come up a lot lately. Don't worry, we'll come back to it further down, along with input from a former director of the CIA and NSA, as well as a military lawyer with decades of experience handling these kinds of cases.)
The message began with the words 'TEAM UPDATE,' and it included details about what type of aircraft would be involved with the strikes, when planes would take off, when Tomahawk missiles would be launched, and the time when the first bombs were expected to drop, Goldberg wrote on Wednesday.
Hegseth also wrote, 'We are currently clean on OPSEC,' referring to operational security. It's already become meme fodder and even a brand of hand sanitizer.
Since the story first broke, Hegseth and other Trump administration officials have furiously argued that the information about the strikes was not classified and did not constitute 'war plans.'
'So, let's [sic] me get this straight,' Hegseth posted to X on Wednesday. '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.'
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Hegseth appeared to confirm the authenticity of the message cited by Goldberg.
'My job, as it said atop of that, everybody has seen it now — 'Team Update' — is to provide updates in real time — general updates in real time, keep everyone informed,' Hegseth said. 'That's what I did.'
But Mark Zaid, a national security attorney, said he is not persuaded by Hegseth's argument that the information about the strikes shared in the chat was too vague to be considered classified.
'Even if they had never happened, it still would have been classified for a period of time, without a doubt,' Zaid told Task & Purpose. 'They were planning this strike on that specific day, with those specific aircraft, at that specific time, which could give a window into future operations.'
Zaid has decades of experience litigating Freedom of Information Act requests for classified information. He said he has 'no doubt' that the information about the Yemen strikes was classified at the time Hegseth sent it.
'It's dumbfounding to even contemplate an argument that this would not be classified,' Zaid said. 'It's reminiscent of the end of the 'The Wizard of Oz,' where the wizard is saying, 'Don't look over at the man behind the curtain,' when you're staring right at him.'
While Hegseth has the power to declassify information, Zaid said he believes it is not realistic that he did so before sending the message about the Yemen strikes.
'Why in the world would the secretary ever declassify sensitive military and operational plans when he thinks he's discussing it with only his other principals?' Zaid said. 'If they want to say it's now not classified because they declassified it, that's a separate issue. But it's laughable to say he declassified it before or as he was sending it as part of a secret text conversation that no one in the public was ever meant to see.'
Also, the Defense Department's declassification process involves determining when information will no longer be of any value to an adversary, which would logically be after a military strike has occurred, not before, a source with extensive knowledge of military operations told Task & Purpose.
Retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who led both the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, told Task & Purpose that he is convinced the information Hegseth shared before the strikes was classified, and perhaps may even have been Top Secret.
Top Secret is a level of classification given to information that, if disclosed without authorization, 'reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security,' according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Classification Guide.
If an adversary had obtained that information Hegseth shared before the strikes, it is possible that U.S. military forces could have suffered casualties as a result, Hayden said.
'They said this is going to happen,' Hayden said. 'They talked about drones and everything. They were naming the weapons, too. When I was CIA director, we have a lot of drones: I didn't talk about them on the telephone.'
If Trump administration officials have been using Signal for the past two months, it is possible that Russia and China have already intercepted sensitive information sent on the messaging app, Hayden said, noting the NSA warned its employees in February that Signal is vulnerable to being exploited by U.S. adversaries.
Hayden said he has spoken with members of the U.S. intelligence community, who are appalled by Goldberg's revelation about the Signal chat group.
'The president, the vice president, the secretary of defense, secretary of state, all of them are saying: 'Oh, it's OK' — it's not OK,' Hayden said.
Those 'Hegseth bodyguards' are actually there for the
When , they often end up in the brig
The Army's Master Combat Badges will be coming to soldiers this month
This photo of Air Force special ops pool training is chaos.
'Saving Private Ryan' didn't make the Army's list of most accurate movie portrayals
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
JFK Files: How Cuba's War Of Words Flooded The Americas
Join authors Dennis McCuistion and Dory Wiley for an explosive panel discussion at The Dallas Express' 'Who Killed JFK?' event on June 9, 2025. , , or today! The CIA feared that Cuba's true revolutionary export wasn't fighters—it was a playbook for turning a country's own resources against itself. Newly declassified intelligence files from the 1960s, released by President Donald Trump in March 2025 as part of the broader 'JFK Files' disclosure, detail extensive efforts by Fidel Castro's Cuba to spread communism across Latin America—not through mass invasions or military might, but by subverting nations from within. One such document from then-CIA Director John A. McCone to then-Senator John Stennis (D-MS) is marked 'Secret' and appears to be from the spring of 1963. The document outlines the CIA's assessment of Cuba's subversive strategy as a potent mix of ideological indoctrination, sabotage training, and psychological warfare. According to the report, Cuba offered revolutionaries from across Latin America a chillingly precise deal: 'Come to Cuba; we will pay your way, we will train you…in guerrilla warfare, in sabotage and in terrorism.' Though the Cubans generally avoided supplying weapons or personnel, they promised political support, training materials, demolition guides, secret communication techniques, and, in some cases, funding. The strategy focused on training guerrillas to be self-sufficient and to weaponize their surroundings. Pocket-sized manuals, such as '150 Questions on Guerrilla Warfare' by Spanish Civil War veteran Alberto Bayo, circulated widely. They instructed revolutionaries on how to craft explosives from household items and steal arms from government forces. CIA agents found versions of these texts adapted for countries like Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. In the early 1960s, the CIA leadership believed between 1,000 and 1,500 individuals from almost every Latin American country (except Uruguay) reportedly traveled to Cuba for ideological or guerrilla training. The Cuban government tried to obscure the movement, issuing visas on separate slips to avoid passport stamps and even providing falsified passports. American intelligence used agents within communist parties and foreign customs authorities to track and estimate the scale of this traffic, the director told the senator. The report highlights Cuba's two-pronged media campaign into the United States as an early extension of this subversive agenda. 'Radio Free Dixie,' hosted by North Carolina-born Robert F. Williams, was broadcast in English to Black Americans in the South, while 'The Friendly Voice of Cuba' reached a wider Southern audience. These programs, the CIA noted, could be heard clearly in Florida and across much of the Deep South and represented a subtle yet strategic psychological campaign aimed at undermining American unity. Castro's ambition, the report asserts, was to make Cuba the blueprint for the Latin American revolution. He famously stated in 1960 that he aimed to 'convert the Cordillera of the Andes into the Sierra Maestra of the American continent.' The Sierra Maestra was the mountain refuge from which Castro launched his successful revolution against Batista. 'Socialism,' he argued, could not afford to wait for democratic change—it had to be won by force. And yet, Cuban communism was not as militant as it might seem. The CIA noted that Castro often trod a careful line between the Soviet Union and Communist China. 'Castro's heart is in Peiping but his stomach is in Moscow,' one section reads, referencing the ideological tug-of-war between Chinese revolutionary zeal and Soviet pragmatism. While China promoted all-out militancy, the Soviets favored subversion through legal means. Castro attempted to serve both masters—adopting Chinese revolutionary theory but relying on Soviet material aid. Despite this ideological balancing act, the CIA classified the Cubans and Venezuelans as the only Communist parties in Latin America 'totally committed to terror and revolution.' Other parties, while ideologically aligned, preferred subversion, propaganda, and infiltration to outright violence—at least initially. Several revolutions swept through South America during the decades following Cuba's turn to communism, some succeeding and others collapsing. In Nicaragua, the Sandinistas ultimately overthrew the Somoza regime in 1979 with tactics reminiscent of the Cuban model. In Chile, Salvador Allende's Marxist government came to power democratically in 1970 but was overthrown in a military coup three years later. Guerrilla movements plagued Colombia, Peru, Argentina, and Bolivia, with groups like the FARC and the Shining Path drawing from the ideological and tactical lineage traced back to Cuba's training camps and printed materials. Even where communist revolutions never took root—such as in Brazil, Ecuador, or Paraguay—leftist guerrilla groups launched campaigns of sabotage and terror, often mimicking Cuban tactics. Many of these movements were ultimately suppressed, but not before spreading fear and destabilization. Perhaps the most telling metric of Cuba's nonviolent infiltration was its printed word. 'It may be worth noting,' the CIA director wrote, 'that the postal and customs authorities in Panama are destroying on average 12 tons a month of Cuban propaganda.' Another 10 tons were reportedly confiscated monthly in Costa Rica. These materials, in the form of books, pamphlets, and ideological tracts, were seen as weapons of war. Despite accepting Soviet missiles and troops during the Cuban Missile Crisis—20,000 Soviet personnel were reportedly stationed in Cuba, according to one document—the island's long-term strategy was quieter and more insidious. The CIA concluded that Cuba's effort to spread communism through nonviolent means was far more effective than the Cuban effort to spread communism through violent means.
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
JFK Files: From Ticks To Tricks, How The U.S. Planned To Sabotage Cuba
Join experts Dennis McCuistion and Dory Wiley for an explosive panel discussion at The Dallas Express' 'Who Killed JFK?' event on June 9, 2025. , , or today! A newly declassified document shows U.S. officials contemplated disguising biological warfare against Cuba as a natural disaster in 1962. The file, titled MINUTES OF MEETING OF THE SPECIAL GROUP ON MONGOOSE 6 SEP 62, suggests top U.S. intelligence and defense officials, including the CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the State Department, discussed the possibility of using covert biological agents to induce crop failure in Cuba during the Cold War. In a section of the document, General Marshall Carter of the Army discussed the 'extreme sensitivity' of such operations but proposed methods to make crop failures 'appear (to be) of natural origin.' McGeorge Bundy, then President John F Kennedy's National Security Advisor, reportedly said such sabotage would be acceptable if it could be plausibly denied and blamed on local disaffection or natural causes—urging caution against 'external activities such as release of chemicals… unless they could be completely covered up.' The document is heavily redacted and appears incomplete, cutting off mid-sentence. Two overlapping versions of the minutes appear in the file, one containing handwritten notes and markings and another including stamps indicating that the CIA objected to its release as recently as 2016. Despite no objection from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the CIA marked the document 'Top Secret,' not releasing it until this year. Also included in the file is a note that 'the Attorney General and Mr. Bundy said that no reprisals against exiles who undertake active operations on their own are contemplated.' The Attorney General at the time was Robert F. Kennedy, President Kennedy's brother, indicating he was directly involved in deliberations over sabotage operations against Cuba, although his views were not recorded on the biological warfare element. Though the list of 'contemplated actions' referenced in the meeting is not included in this batch of released materials, the document indicates that the group spent significant time considering biological sabotage. Throughout the conversation, the assumption is that the United States not only had the capability to develop such agents but also the logistical means to deploy them covertly in a hostile nation. These revelations deepen the historical record of Operation Mongoose, a covert anti-Castro campaign launched in 1961 following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. As noted by the State Department's Office of the Historian, Operation Mongoose was designed 'to remove the Communist Castro regime from power in Cuba.' Directed by Air Force General Edward Lansdale, the program involved coordinated psychological, political, military, and intelligence efforts, including propaganda dissemination, sabotage missions, and assassination attempts. The State Department Historian notes that Lansdale's plan laid out a six-phase strategy presented to Robert Kennedy in February 1962 and to President Kennedy in March. Monthly initiatives were set in motion to destabilize the Cuban government, culminating in preparations for a potential military intervention in October 1962. Though many of these operations were deployed, the military intervention never occurred. The newly revealed document echoes earlier reporting from The Dallas Express, which uncovered evidence of biological tactics being used to manipulate international opinion. That report, titled JFK Files: From Hoof to Hoax, Revealing the Army's Epidemic PR Stunt, cited an Army intelligence memorandum describing how U.S. operatives influenced Mexican media to report outbreaks of hoof-and-mouth and smallpox in Cuba. The effort apparently discouraged Mexican professionals from attending an architecture conference in Havana under the guise of a public health scare. It remains unclear whether the reported epidemic ever existed—or whether it was planted as part of a psychological operation. These disclosures align with firsthand accounts like that of Kris Newby, author and science journalist, who told Corporate Crime Reporter in 2024 about a conversation with a former CIA operative who claimed he had 'dropped infected ticks on Cuban sugar cane workers in 1962.' Newby, who has extensively researched the origins of Lyme disease, said the man admitted the goal was to cripple Cuba's economy by targeting its most lucrative crop—sugar. Newby said she later verified aspects of the man's story, tracing it back to Operation Mongoose. The tactic, she explained, aimed to weaken the Cuban labor force and induce economic collapse, consistent with broader U.S. objectives in the region. Newby wrote the 2020 non-fiction Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons. These new documents and testimonies suggest that U.S. intelligence agencies had the means to execute a biological attack, as well as to control the media coverage around it. As DX reported, the Army previously used fabricated or exaggerated outbreaks to shape international perception and discourage engagement with Cuba. The covert planting of diseases—or even rumors of diseases—was part of a larger strategy of media manipulation and subversion. Such operations were conducted in a geopolitical context marked by Cold War paranoia, heightened by the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962. Fidel Castro's growing ties with the Soviet Union led U.S. intelligence officials to view Cuba not just as a local threat but as a potential launching point for communist influence throughout Latin America, DX reported. A 2017 CBS report on a prior batch of JFK files revealed that the CIA had even considered staging bombings in Miami to justify retaliation against Cuba. The declassified materials documented deliberations over creating a wave of staged terrorist attacks to justify military action. In the years since these operations were conceived, U.S. policy ostensibly moved away from biological weapons. On November 25, 1969, President Richard Nixon formally renounced the use of biological warfare, ordering the end of all offensive biological research. Fort Detrick, once an apparent nerve center of such experimentation, allegedly shifted to focus solely on defensive research and diagnostics. The Mongoose meeting minutes were obtained by The Dallas Express in the outlet's ongoing processing of the approximately 80,000 files related to the assassination of President John F Kennedy that were declassified by the Trump administration earlier this spring.
Epoch Times
23 minutes ago
- Epoch Times
Hegseth Vows US Support for Indo-Pacific Allies, Warns of ‘Imminent' China Threat
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged on Saturday that the United States would continue to support Indo-Pacific allies in maintaining peace and stability, as he warned of an imminent military threat from China. Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Hegseth
