Hegseth Security Breach Could Have Had Grave Consequences

The Trump administration’s response to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s taking detailed information from the Central Command’s classified system about U.S. attacks on the Houthis, a group attacking ships in the Red Sea and Israel, and putting it on the minimally encrypted Signal system has been a series of varying and unconvincing excuses.

These rationalizations include that the information was not classified, the public would not have known about it except for vile leakers opposed to the SecDef at the Pentagon, and that the entire episode is simply “fake news.”

As to the latter, hardly. Forty-two years dealing with national security, defense and foreign policy issues have made me skeptical that the U.S. military is a well-oiled machine, as the public imagines, and that all classified information should have that designation. Some of that information you could read in the popular news is common knowledge, or is hiding the military and defense bureaucracies’ bumbling or corruption.

However, you will find as you visit forces in the field—deployed Army or Marine units, Air Force air wings, or Navy ships—security tightens appreciably compared to what it is back in Washington. And for good reason.

Forces deployed abroad or actively engaged in combat—as these forces in the Middle East were in attacking Houthi targets—realize that breaches of operational security revealing the time of commencement of the attack, which weapons will be used, and their exact time arrival can alert the enemy in time to counteract them, thus endangering the lives of service men and women. The information was not only classified but was some of the most important and justifiably classified that the U.S. government holds.

Although it is true that if Jeffrey Goldberg, a veteran national security reporter for The Atlantic, hadn’t done his job after being mistakenly added to a Signal chat group of high-level national security personnel or leakers hadn’t leaked that Hegseth had put the same operational details on another Signal chat group that included his wife, brother and his personal lawyer, the public would not have found out about it. But that was not the problem.

Unfriendly countries, such as Russia, China, Iran or North Korea, could have easily cracked the Signal transmission and have gotten it to the Houthis in time for them to perhaps parry the attack and kill U.S. service personnel. If this scenario seems far-fetched, let’s examine a little-remembered, but even more outrageous, real-life example that did cost U.S. military personnel in the field their lives—this time during a Democratic administration.

By early August 1964, during the fighting in Vietnam, the United States was supporting secret South Vietnamese raids against the North Vietnamese coast. At this time, Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson wanted to justify greater U.S. military action to help the losing South Vietnamese against the North Vietnamese. The North Vietnamese used patrol boats to retaliate against U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, which were supporting the South Vietnamese coastal raids (doubt exists among participants and historians that the second of two North Vietnamese attacks, which triggered U.S. retaliation, actually occurred).

Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam to retaliate for the North Vietnamese patrol boat retaliation, but wanted to announce it on television before the prime-time viewing window closed. Hence, the president unconscionably announced publicly that the raid had been carried out even before the U.S. aircraft got over their targets. Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese liked to watch TV and had their capable air defenses ready to shoot down U.S. aircraft, killing American pilots.

As with attacks against the Houthis, such military action that doesn’t go through the prior and proper constitutionally required congressional approval process (only after the United States supported South Vietnamese raids and began bombing of the North was Congress asked to approve the Gulf of Tonkin resolution authorizing military retaliation but not formally declaring war) is not raised to a level of importance needed to gain the high-level attention, appreciation, and care of executive branch officials, such as the secretary of defense.

Without such elevation of national purpose, officials often regard the undeclared enemy as backward and underestimate its capabilities, which has been one of the biggest mistakes in the history of warfare. It is usually better—economically, politically and militarily—to stay out of wars if it can be. If not, Congress should elevate the importance of any military action by officially sanctioning it.

Then the old saying “loose lips sink ships,” for which even senior U.S. officials always need to abide, would likely receive even greater emphasis.