War Plans -- for your information -- from the New York Times

 The Worst Part of Pete Hegseth’s Group Chat Debacle

And why the careless secretary of defense should resign.

March 25, 2025

By David French

There are so many ways in which sharing war plans is among the most egregious forms of security breach. It’s hard to think of a form of security breach that is worse than this. But aside from that, there is now public insight into conversations that were meant to be private.

You have the vice president questioning the judgment of the president. You have the vice president laying into our allies. I know that’s something that they do publicly, as well, but there’s a difference between public communication and private communication. The private communication was never intended for the allies. So all of these things are damaging diplomatically. They’re damaging politically. They’re damaging militarily, and in the worst scenario, they could be catastrophically dangerous for American lives.

It should be obvious to people that sharing plans for an attack hours before the attack could create problems, but let’s get a little bit more specific: The Houthis could move some of their weapons away from targeted locations. They could move senior officials away from targeted locations so that the strikes are less effective. They could choose to, for example, launch missiles themselves to attack before they are attacked, an action that could be incredibly costly in lives and in ships. They could move their senior leaders.

The administration is saying now that there was nothing classified in the chat and they weren’t really war plans, in many ways, casting aspersions on Goldberg’s integrity. In fact, when Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, was confronted with these facts, he attacked Goldberg and did not acknowledge his own wrongdoing. But there is not an officer alive whose career would survive a security breach like this.

From the very first weeks that you’re a member of the military, you start learning about operational security. This is drilled into officers. And those consequences would be instant relief from command.

I have seen this with my own eyes. I have been a part of this process. You would have a relief from command followed by a comprehensive investigation, and potentially criminal charges. In the military, you would be advising an officer to seek counsel, to get a lawyer instantly, because the criminal investigation would be equally instant.