{"id":252892,"date":"2026-04-05T12:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/252892\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T12:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T12:50:13","slug":"inside-the-pentagon-fears-of-a-disrupted-war-effort-after-army-chiefs-ouster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/252892\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Pentagon, fears of a disrupted war effort after Army chief\u2019s ouster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Merely two weeks had passed since the Iran war began when Gen. Randy George, the Army\u2019s highest-ranking officer, began sounding an alarm.<\/p>\n

Touring a weapons depot in North Carolina, George warned lawmakers present that the conflict\u2019s vast and ever-growing list of targets was straining U.S. capacity \u2014 \u201cdepleting our stockpiles faster than we can replace them,\u201d as one congressman recalled. Since assuming Army leadership, George had made it his mission to strengthen the nation\u2019s industrial base in anticipation of precisely this moment, when the United States would be engaged in a major war with a formidable adversary.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, in a brief phone call, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired George. No reason was given, a U.S. official familiar with the matter told The Times.<\/p>\n

The forced departure of George in the middle of a war created yet another blow to morale inside the Pentagon, where multiple officials expressed dismay over the state of the department\u2019s leadership<\/a>. Over the last year, Hegseth has fired five sitting members of the joint chiefs of staff, with only two holdovers remaining in their posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever you have a change in leadership, military or otherwise, there is bound to be some churn in information management,\u201d one U.S. official said, granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cSo what you\u2019re doing, in the middle of a war, as we are taking U.S. casualties, is you\u2019re taking out the general in charge of making sure the right people and equipment are flowing into the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inside the building, officials believe that Hegseth\u2019s next target is Dan Driscoll, the Army secretary and an ally to President Trump. Driscoll has been seen by Hegseth\u2019s aides as outshining the Defense secretary on prominent policy initiatives.<\/p>\n

\"General <\/p>\n

Gen. Randy George, U.S. Army chief of staff, speaks with soldiers during training exercises at Lightning Academy at Schofield Barracks in Honolulu on Nov. 10, 2025.<\/p>\n

(Christopher Lee\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

It is a purge that Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill fear could have tangible, detrimental effects on the war effort. Sens. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Joni Ernst of Iowa, all members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have expressed private concerns over George\u2019s firing, a second U.S. official said.<\/p>\n

Forcing out Army leadership responsible for training and equipping its soldiers, and for ensuring weapons stockpiles continue to meet demand, risks bureaucratic chaos and despair in the ranks at a time when the Trump administration is openly considering a ground operation in Iran.<\/p>\n

Others in the Pentagon have raised concern over the U.S. military stockpile, including Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, who last month warned at a defense conference<\/a> that munitions shortages were a concern even before the war began.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was something that we were concerned about even before the operation,\u201d Meink said. \u201cIt has just been the fact that we couldn\u2019t see the threat evolving and what we\u2019re facing. So we definitely have to improve on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has denied<\/a> that the United States faces weapons shortages, even after meeting with the nation\u2019s top contractors last month in a push for them to increase \u2014 and on some products, quadruple \u2014 their output.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat interceptors we have for Iran is because of Randy George,\u201d the first U.S. official countered. \u201cHe continued to work that problem set up through [Thursday]. It\u2019s a problem set he was working in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jerry McGinn, director of the Center for the Industrial Base at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said U.S. forces have reached a stage in the war where they can pivot away from standoff weapons systems. With Iran\u2019s air defenses largely degraded, they can instead rely on weapons such as laser-guided bombs, helping ease pressure on stockpiles.<\/p>\n

But Iran\u2019s downing of two U.S. aircraft on Friday suggests that longer-range weapons may still be necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the stockpile is stressed, as it was after Ukraine and then now with Iran, any surge in need leads to a backlog as they try to replenish,\u201d McGinn said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe three things they\u2019ve been using a whole lot of are Tomahawks, [Terminal High Altitude Area Defense] and Patriots, and those inventories were already somewhat depleted after Midnight Hammer last summer,\u201d McGinn added. \u201cYou can\u2019t crank those out very fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond his role tending to the nation\u2019s \u201cmagazine depth\u201d \u2014 making sure the military isn\u2019t firing more weapons than it is able to replenish \u2014 George also led the Pentagon\u2019s effort to set up a joint task force last year aimed at speeding up the U.S. military\u2019s ability to counter small unmanned aircraft systems, or drones. <\/p>\n

The program has proved critical in the war effort. Tehran now relies heavily on its Shahed drones<\/a>, with its missile production and launch capacity severely diminished.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging the Pentagon expulsions, Iran\u2019s embassy in South Africa posted photos on social media Friday x-ing out portraits of several top U.S. military officials fired in recent months. <\/p>\n

\u201cRegime change happened successfully,\u201d the Iranians wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Merely two weeks had passed since the Iran war began when Gen. Randy George, the Army\u2019s highest-ranking officer,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252893,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[112247,112243,19873,5411,93309,48,52,51,47,50,49,112242,58299,112248,1524,5407,112246,7177,112244,112245,96215],"class_list":{"0":"post-252892","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-army-chief","9":"tag-army-leadership","10":"tag-george","11":"tag-hegseth","12":"tag-iran-war","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-headlines","15":"tag-la-news","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","18":"tag-los-angeles-news","19":"tag-major-war","20":"tag-middle","21":"tag-multiple-official","22":"tag-nation","23":"tag-pentagon","24":"tag-private-concern","25":"tag-stockpile","26":"tag-u-s-capacity","27":"tag-u-s-official","28":"tag-war-effort"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}