Pentagon plays down report of Hegseth regularly overruling military advice

Response seeks to discredit Washington Post story that four generals and admirals advised against prolonging Iran war Pete Hegseth regularly receives formal objections from senior commanders and proceeds anyway, the Pentagon’s top spokesman has said, as he tried to discredit a Washington Post report that four generals and admirals had advised against prolonging the war in Iran. “Of course, we demand candid military advice,” Sean Parnell wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Non-concurs are standard. The Secretary sees them constantly. That’s how you run a real military.” Parnell was responding to the Post’s account of four four-star commanders who had lodged formal “non-concurs” against a plan to keep more than 50,000 US troops in the Middle East through September, with some deployments potentially running into 2027. In dismissing the story, Parnell did not dispute that the objections had been filed, or that Hegseth fields such dissent on an ongoing basis. “Publishing highly classified assessments from the Secretary’s orders book is a crime,” he wrote. “It’s a betrayal of the force. And much of what they’re publishing is inaccurate … We are in great shape around the world. This story isn’