Pete Hegsetth says the signal chat did not have “war plans”. She’s wrong, experts say | News Donald Trump

Standing on the Hawaiian runway, American defense secretary of Pete Hegsetth told a journalist on March 24: “No one sent war plans and that is all I have to say about it.” The next day he repeated the statement.

Trump administration Signal groups texts told another story.

March 24, editor -in -chief of Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg It is detailed that it was accidentally added to a group chat to a signal of messages to exchange messages with high -ranking administration officials discussing the upcoming air strike on US opponents in Yemen.

In the initial story, Goldberg said that the “war plans” he received in the chat mentioned “precise information on weapons packages, goals and time”. Goldberg did not include detailed messages of military strikes because of his concern for publishing sensitive security data.

National Security Council confirmed the authenticity of topics and said that it would review that Goldberg’s number was added to the chain.

After the White House and Hegsetth Refusation that they were discussing “war plans”, the Atlantic He published the thread of the whole text. Messages published on March 26 show that Hegsetth sent information about when aircraft and unmanned aircraft will be launched when bombs will fall and the expected movement of goals.

When we contacted the White House for the comment, a spokeswoman pointed us to the printed secretary of Karolina Leavitt on the X o X that the “war plans” was discussed.

USA hit Houthi fighters on March 15, as part of the effort to take over a group that repeatedly attacked ships in the Red Sea since the beginning of the Israel war in Gaza in October 2023.

After the second story of the Atlantic, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz wrote on X, “No locations. No sources and methods. No war plans.” Hegsetth made a similar post on X, saying that published messages do not include names or goals, which meant “these are some really shitty war plans”. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said, “There were no war plans there.”

The army officially does not use the term “war plans,” military experts said. Detailed are the most important military plans-Stotins or as many as a thousand pages and include information on force implementation.

However, most of the experts we spoke with said that civilians would be widely considered the types of details involved in signaling messages as certain plans.

After Atlantic published messages in full, Michael O’Henlon, an older foreign policy colleague at Brookings Institution, said: “Make giving targeted coordinates, is about as specific as it gets.”

What Hegsetth shared and what experts do from that

In the initial article, Goldberg said that Hegsets messages contained “operational details about the upcoming Yemeni strikes, including information about goals, weapons that would now be assigned and attacked sequences.”

In an interview with host MSNBC Jen Psaki, a white house spokeswoman under former President Joe Biden, after the story was published, Goldberg said that the messages contained “a specific time of future attack, specific goals, including human goals that were to be killed in that attack, weapons, even if it was not a war plan War plan.

Tracking article on March 26 in Atlantic included these messages from Hegsetth:

• “Time is now (1144et): The time is favorable. We have just confirmed that we are launching a mission.”
• “1215et: F-18S launch (1st strike pack)”
• “1345:” A Window of F-18 begins on trigger “triggers a window (Target terrorist is @ his famous location, so he should be on time-dot, Strike drones Launch (MQ-9s)”
• “1410: More F-18 launch (2nd strike package)”
• “1415: Strike Drones on the target (this is when the first bombs will definitely fall, waiting for earlier” goals based on the trigger) “
• “1536 F-18 begins 2nd strike-so-driven launched the first sea Tomawks.”
• “More to follow (by time lane)”
• “” We are currently cleaning on scalp ” – that is, operational security.”
• “God for our warriors.”

Military experts said that texts do not represent the whole plan, but contain alarming specific details.

“The term” war plan “often (but not always) refers to a comprehensive planning document, which can start hundreds of pages, with details about how the US military intends to follow a certain military goal,” said Nora Bensahel, professor of practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and editor at war.

After seeing messages, Bensahel said, “These are clear operational plans for the use of military force. I do not see how administration can claim that these are not war plans, because they are clear plans for war.”

The defense guide in 2023 defines the operating plan, also known as the “complete and detailed plan containing a complete description” and the “time force list and the list of forces and implementation”.

“We have a fee as an unforeseen state if we have to go to war,” said Ty Seidule, a retired American Army General who served in the US Army for more than three decades and Hamilton College was visited by a history professor. “As we had for Iraq in 1990 and 2003. They run on thousands of pages and include incredible details.”

The text messages did not make the corner, Seidule said, but a “cliff” version, with “all the important details of the military operation” and “apparently by breach of first -order safety.”

The newly discovered texts “are of operational details from the concept of surgery (Conop) or, in this case, colloquially, strike,” said Heidi A Urben, professor of practice at Georgetown University and former military intelligence officer.

Seidule said that Hegsetth has a point that the exchanging of the text is not a long war plan, but “what he used was all important details of a common surgery against the enemy force, which is worse.”

Thane Clare, who served in the Navy for 25 years and withdrew as a captain, said that since the Ministry of Defense did not use the term “war plan”, which “technically given Hegsetth and others completely unwavering”. Clare is now a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and Budget Assessment, an independent source of defense analysis.

However, Clare said, “The Yemeni chat are 100 percent of sensitive operational information that reveals critical details about immediate operations.”

Military experts have seen many safety problems with administration officials using plans communication signal.

“Everyone in the Intel-Defense community knows that the signal provides PGP, rather good protection,” said Robert L deitz, a public policy professor George Mason, who was the chief advisor to the National Security Agency and the CIA director. “It’s great for children planning fun for teenagers. This will prevent parents from a loop. But the PGP did not block a serious Intel organization halfway.”