Above photo: Leah Mills/Reuters.
His dismissal has fueled fears of a loyalty-based crackdown within the Trump government.
The head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, was dismissed from his post after his agency reported that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities caused only “limited damage,” contradicting President Donald Trump’s claim of “total destruction,” officials announced on 22 August.
Officials told Reuters and AP that no explanation was provided for Kruse’s removal, and he was not informed of the grounds for his dismissal.
The announcement later confirmed that two other officers, Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, chief of the Navy Reserve, and Rear Admiral Milton Sands, who led Naval Special Warfare Command, were also fired.
Kruse’s agency had assessed that the US strikes in June set back Iran’s nuclear program only by months.
That conclusion, leaked to US media, directly clashed with Trump’s repeated assertions that the operation had “obliterated” the facilities.
A senior defense official told reporters that Kruse “will no longer serve as DIA director,” without elaborating.
Trump has consistently denounced the DIA findings, accusing outlets such as CNN and the New York Times of publishing “fake news” to demean what he called “one of the most successful military strikes in history.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has called the strikes “not significant, while the International Atomic Energy Agency also said that claims of total destruction were “overblown.”
Trump’s insistence on total destruction was bolstered by Israeli claims that Fordow had been “completely destroyed,” though even Israeli officials later admitted the outcome was “really not good.”
European intelligence assessments, as reported by the Financial Times, likewise indicated that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium survived the attack, undermining Trump’s narrative.
The purge of Kruse comes in the context of a broader ongoing restructuring that, since February, has seen Trump remove General Charles ‘CQ’ Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chiefs of the Navy and Coast Guard, the head of the National Security Agency, and several other top officers. Earlier this week, the Air Force chief announced his early retirement.
News of Kruse’s removal also follows Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s decision, under Trump’s orders, to revoke security clearances for 37 intelligence officials and cut staff in her office by more than 40 percent.
