WaPo Faces Backlash For Story Based On Pentagon Document

Top U.S. military commanders formally dissented from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order to extend large-scale Iran operations, warning in a classified Pentagon document that the deployments are unsustainable and would weaken the military’s ability to counter threats elsewhere, including the American homeland. 

The heads of the Army, Navy and Air Force, plus the four-star commanders of U.S. European Command, U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Southern Command, registered those concerns in the Aug. 14 Secretary of Defense Orders Book. Leaders of European, Pacific and Southern Command, along with the Navy’s top admiral, entered a formal “non-concur”—signaling disagreement with the order while still agreeing to carry it out. Army and Air Force leaders concurred with the extensions but flagged significant risk. 

Sean Parnell

One official familiar with the assessment described the overall view as “too much for too long.” The orders book directed some of the more than 50,000 troops committed to the six-month Iran campaign to remain in the Middle East through September and others into 2027. Commanders objected that ships, aircraft, munitions and personnel pulled from other theaters had already degraded training, maintenance and readiness for missions in Europe, the Pacific, Latin America and homeland defense. The Navy’s chief of naval operations delivered one of the starkest assessments, saying current support levels cannot be sustained without an end date in sight and that only about a quarter of the destroyer fleet is ready to deploy. 

The Washington Post published the details of this classified document on Aug. 30, citing anonymous sources. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called the publication “a crime” and “a betrayal of the force,” adding that much of the reporting was inaccurate. He noted that non-concurs are a standard, expected part of candid military advice and that the secretary sees them routinely. Publishing the contents of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book—a twice-monthly classified compilation of force availability, allocations and risk assessments—goes beyond routine journalism. It exposes internal deliberations on force posture, readiness shortfalls and how long specific units and assets will stay committed.