US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lt. Gen. Jeffery Kruse, following controversy over the agency's assessment of U.S. strikes on Iran, according to U.S. media reports. The Pentagon has not offered an official explanation, but Kruse's removal comes weeks after the White House sharply criticized a DIA report that concluded American attacks had delayed Iran's nuclear program by only months. President Donald Trump rejected the assessment as "flat out wrong," insisting the strikes had "completely destroyed" Iranian nuclear sites. Kruse's exit, first reported by the Washington Post, was accompanied by the removal of two other senior commanders: the chief of U.S. Naval Reserves and the commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Reuters reported. The firings underscore rising tensions within the Pentagon since Trump took office in January. In April, he ousted Gen. Timothy Haugh as director of the National Security Agency, and in February, Hegseth dismissed Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown alongside five other admirals and generals. The DIA, which provides military intelligence to support U.S. operations, has long faced friction with Trump. In June, the president dismissed the leaked DIA report as an effort "to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history." Hegseth echoed the criticism at the NATO summit, calling the analysis "low intelligence" and noting that the FBI was investigating the leak. Sen. Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned that Kruse's dismissal highlighted a "dangerous habit of treating intelligence as a loyalty test rather than a safeguard for our country." Kruse, a veteran intelligence officer, had led the DIA since 2023. — Agencies
