By Jim Geraghty
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
You may have noticed some abrupt personnel changes at the Pentagon; at least four
staffers around Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have departed, with three top
staffers fired amidst allegations of unauthorized leaks. Our Michael Brendan Dougherty puts the number at 15 fired
staffers.
For what it’s worth, Hegseth himself affirmed that those
staffers were fired for leaks, declaring at Monday’s White House Easter Egg
Roll, “what a big surprise that a few leakers get fired, and suddenly a bunch
of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax.”
In just 87 days in his position, Hegseth has dealt with
the embarrassment of the Signal chat about the strike on the Houthis, other leaks of sensitive discussions to the New York Times,
and now a report that the secretary “shared detailed
information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal
group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer,” including “the
flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen.” This
Signal chat was reportedly started by Hegseth himself.
Don Bacon, a Republican representative who represents
Omaha, Neb., is publicly expressing doubts that Hegseth is the right man to
remain in the top job at the Pentagon:
“I had concerns from the get-go
because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” Bacon, a former Air
Force general who now chairs of the subcommittee on cyber issues, said in an
interview. “I like him on Fox. But does he have the experience to lead one of
the largest organizations in the world? That’s a concern. . . .”
“If it’s true that he had another
[Signal] chat with his family, about the missions against the Houthis, it’s
totally unacceptable,” said Bacon, referring to the New York Times report that
Hegseth shared sensitive information about military operations in Yemen in a
private chat on the Signal app that included his wife, brother and personal
lawyer. It’s the second report of administration officials using an
unclassified messaging platform to share sensitive information.
“I’m not in the White House, and
I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this . . . but I find it
unacceptable, and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge,” Bacon continued.
Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Jimmy Gomez is
publicly doubting that Hegseth has quit drinking as he promised during his confirmation hearings:
“When Secretary Hegseth keeps
making reckless mistakes with our national security — like leaking war plans in
Signal chats or the chaos we’re seeing at the Pentagon — it’s fair to wonder if
he actually stopped drinking like he promised during his confirmation,” Gomez
told HuffPost in a statement. “People have legitimate concerns about whether
his judgment is compromised.”
But now that he’s confirmed by the Senate, it doesn’t
really matter if members of Congress have lost faith in Hegseth; he serves at
the pleasure of the president, and so far, President Donald Trump apparently
sees no reason to worry about Hegseth’s management. At the White House Easter
Egg roll, President Trump said of Hegseth, “He is doing a great job.”
NPR offered a bombshell article yesterday, reporting, “The White House
has begun the process of looking for a new leader at the Pentagon to replace
Pete Hegseth,” attributing the news to “a U.S. official who was not authorized
to speak publicly.” That could be just about anybody, not even necessarily a
person appointed by Trump. On X, White
House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the NPR report “total FAKE
NEWS based on one anonymous source who clearly has no idea what they are
talking about.”
(This isn’t the first time unnamed sources have contended
Hegseth’s position is insecure; back in early December, the Wall Street Journal reported
that Trump was considering Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as a possible
replacement for Pete Hegseth.)
In his brief defense of Hegseth Monday, Trump quipped,
“Ask the Houthis how he’s doing.”
It’s a good idea; we’ve been bombing the Houthis since
the Ides of March, but the conflict has received seemingly minimal coverage in
the busy U.S. news cycle.
The good news for the U.S. is that if you’re a known
Houthi military site, you’ve probably been blown up in the past five weeks. The
U.S. has launched hundreds of airstrikes, sometimes more than two dozen
in a single day. One raid
on the Ras Isa port inflicted more than $700 million in losses, according
to one Yemeni analyst; that
port “has two shipping lanes for ships, accommodates more than 50 tankers,
and houses 34 tanks. These massive capabilities make Ras Isa Port in Hodeidah
one of the most prominent Yemeni ports.”
But as the Associated Press reports, “Assessing the toll of
the month-old U.S. airstrike campaign has been difficult because the military
hasn’t released information about the attacks, including what was targeted and
how many people were killed. The Houthis, meanwhile, strictly control access to
attacked areas and don’t publish complete information on the strikes, many of
which likely have targeted military and security sites.”
The head of the Houthi-run Supreme Political Council,
Mahdi al-Mashat, is taking a defiant tone:
“If the American escalates
further, it means his weapons have failed and he’s just offering more targets,”
Mashat said in a televised speech Sunday evening, dressed in military attire
following a top-level military meeting. “Trump may have thought it would be a
leisurely affair, but he landed in a strategic quagmire called Yemen.”
It’s the odd sort of quagmire that doesn’t include any
human casualties. No U.S. pilots shot down, no successful strikes on U.S. ships
in the Red Sea or anywhere else. Previous conflicts like Vietnam, Somalia, and
Iraq demonstrated that the American public will quickly turn against military
operations if they see a lot of U.S. casualties. An April 4 Harvard-Harris survey found 71 percent of
Americans support President Trump’s decision to strike the Houthis and restore
maritime security. That includes 58 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of
independents.
Sharp eyes will notice I specified human casualties
above. The Houthis have been surprisingly good — or lucky — when it
comes to shooting down U.S. drones: “The Houthis shot down a US MQ-9 Reaper
drone on Friday, the sixth since March 3, US officials told CNN. Each MQ-9
costs about $30 million, the officials added, and the US only has a few more
than 200 of the sophisticated drones in its arsenal.” (Considering the rapid pace of innovations in drone technology over in the Ukraine war,
the U.S. military probably needs fewer big, expensive Reapers and more
inexpensive, fast, smaller surveillance drones.)
You could argue that the U.S. effort against the Houthis
is a de facto proxy war against Beijing and its interests. In an April 17 Financial Times report that got way less
attention than it deserved, the Trump administration contended that Chinese
companies — no doubt with the tacit support of the Chinese government — are
helping the Houthis with their strikes:
Donald Trump’s administration has
repeatedly warned Beijing that Chang Guang Satellite Technology, a commercial
group with ties to the People’s Liberation Army, is providing the Houthis with
the intelligence, according to the US officials.
“The United States has raised our
concerns privately numerous times to the Chinese government on Chang Guang
Satellite Technology Co Ltd’s role in supporting the Houthis in order to get
Beijing to take action,” said a senior state department official.
The official added the Asian
country had “ignored” the concerns. He also told the Financial Times that the
company’s actions and “Beijing’s tacit support” despite Washington’s warnings
were “yet another example of China’s empty claims to support peace.”
“We urge our partners to judge
the Chinese Communist party and Chinese companies on their actions, not their
empty words,” the official said.
Tammy Bruce, the state
department’s spokesperson, confirmed CGSTL was “directly supporting Iran-backed
Houthi terrorist attacks on US interests.” She added: “The US will not tolerate
anyone providing support to foreign terrorist organizations such as the
Houthis.”
For what it’s worth, the company denies the accusation.
You don’t have to look far to find pessimistic
assessments of the ongoing conflict.
Writing in The Atlantic, Robert Worth concludes, “It is a war with no apparent strategy apart
from Trump’s hunger for what he calls ‘swift and unrelenting action’ on almost every front.
And it is likely to backfire badly if the administration doesn’t change
course.” Even the right-of-center Washington Examiner concludes, “After nearly a month of
‘relentless’ bombing, Yemen’s Houthis are degraded, but undeterred.”
But in an April 10 interview, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a
member of Ansar Allah’s political bureau and a longtime spokesperson for the
Houthis, made it sound like the Houthis were looking for a way to stop the U.S.
bombing:
“We do not consider ourselves at
war with the American people,” said Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansar
Allah’s political bureau and a longtime spokesperson for the Houthis. “If the
U.S. stops targeting Yemen, we will cease our military operations against it. .
. .”
While Trump and other senior U.S.
officials have claimed they would cease attacks on Yemen if the Houthis stop
firing on American ships — which is precisely what al-Bukhaiti told Drop Site
the Houthis are prepared to do — it is unlikely they would make good on that
pledge as long as Israel’s war against the Palestinians of Gaza continues.
Also note that the Houthis have instituted a strict, and apparently
widely mocked — gag order on anyone discussing the consequences of the
strikes:
The directive amounts to a
sweeping gag order: citizens are forbidden from speaking about or posting the
names of targeted regions and sites, with anyone doing so branded a “spy for
the U.S. and Israel.” While the Houthis see the campaign as a smart move to
prevent the publication of American operational successes, critics have turned
it into an online joke, mocking the terror group’s demand through memes and
satirical posts.
Participants in the
counter-campaign say the Houthis’ policy is a blatant attempt to silence
dissent and cover up the extent of the damage from U.S. strikes. They view the
gag order as an implicit admission of the significant losses the militia is
sustaining, as well as a sign of deep distrust in the local population.
Worth writes, “To take territory from the Houthis would
require a ground offensive. Operation Rough Rider does not include one.”
But Yemen’s legitimate government might be getting ready
to provide one. On April 13, the Jerusalem Post reported:
Yemen’s government is reportedly
preparing to launch a massive assault to recapture Hodeidah Port in western
Yemen from the Houthis, according to a Friday report in Emirati state media.
Yemen’s internationally
recognized government is preparing to mass nearly 80,000 troops for what would
be the largest offensive of the civil war, according to statements by Dr.
Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center based in Saudi Arabia, on
Friday. . . .
80,000 soldiers would represent a
majority of all non-Houthi forces in Yemen. This would constitute the largest
offensive of the civil war and would also set the stage for an assault on the
capital city Sana’a, which has been under Houthi control since 2014.
Of course, in the Middle East, rumors are about as common
as sand. But according to the Institute for the Study of War:
“Saudi media reported on April 19
that the Houthis have placed landmines around Hudaydah City in preparation for
a potential Yemeni Armed Forces ground offensive, citing unspecified government
sources.” Whether or not the Yemeni government is preparing a new offensive,
the Houthis are acting like they expect a new offensive.
Hudaydah City is the largest city
on Yemen’s west coast, and the region of Hudaydah governate covers much of the
western coastline facing the Red Sea. If the Houthis were driven out of that
territory, the threat to shipping though the Red Sea would be greatly
mitigated.
As the ISW concluded, “An air campaign can only achieve
temporary effects. The temporal effects of this air campaign could be
significant, however, and could deter the Houthis from continuing attacks if
the United States renders the Houthis unwilling to continue. A campaign to
permanently prevent the Houthis from using Hudaydah Governorate to launch
attacks targeting international shipping would require a ground operation to
take and hold ground.”
ADDENDUM: In case you missed it yesterday, in a scene so ridiculous
it surpasses any attempt at satire, Vermont
Senator Bernie Sanders, on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, spoke at the
Coachella music festival in Indio, Calif. Tickets for Coachella start
at $539, and VIP
tickets go for $1,399. The event is held at the Empire Polo Club. Performers on
stage included Lady Gaga, Green Day, and Megan Thee Stallion, all of whom are
multimillionaires, among others. To rapturous applause, Sanders thundered about
the need for “economic justice” to the spectacularly well-off crowd.
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