This is a solemn edition of the Pentagon Rundown. Officials believe that 64 people aboard an American Airlines passenger plane and three crew members of an Army Black Hawk helicopter were killed when the two aircraft collided on Wednesday night near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. First responders continue to work tirelessly to ensure that all those lost in the crash are recovered and reunited with their loved ones.
Much has happened since the last Rundown. On Jan. 24, the Senate confirmed Pete Hegseth to serve as defense secretary. Hegseth issued a message to the force the following day in which he promised that under his leadership the U.S. military will focus on “lethality, meritocracy, accountability, standards, and readiness.” Though Hegseth has presented himself as a new kind of defense secretary, he’s certainly settling into the role in a very traditional way: By introducing a ton of new buzzwords.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has paved the way for troops who were separated due to the Defense Department’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine program to return with full back pay and benefits. Additionally, the executive order that Trump signed on Tuesday directed that service members who left voluntarily rather than get vaccinated be allowed to return without repercussions to their service, rank, or pay.
And that’s just the start of this week’s rundown:
- Migrants at GITMO. On Wednesday, Trump directed the defense and homeland security secretaries to prepare to hold 30,000 migrants who entered the United States illegally at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the military already runs a prison for suspected terrorists including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The executive order does not specify who will guard the migrants or what facilities will be used to lodge them. Hegseth issued a video message on Thursday saying the Defense Department is working in “real time” to comply with Trump’s directive “to make sure that we have a location for violent, criminal illegals as they are deported out of the country.”
- Ready, fire, aim. Trump has made clear that he expects the Defense Department and the rest of the federal government to eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, programs, policies, and offices. In their zeal to implement the president’s directives, some military officials quickly took action, but then promptly reversed course. The Air Force briefly removed videos about the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots from the Basic Military Training curriculum before announcing that the videos were back. And the Army temporarily halted contracts before pulling an about-face.
- “This was not the enemy.” Not long ago, many people were worried that lights and mysterious-looking flying objects seen in the New Jersey skies were hostile drones. U.S. Rep. Jefferson Van Drew (R-N.J.) claimed that the drones were coming from an Iranian ship off the East Coast, although he later clarified that all of Iran’s three drone ships were elsewhere at the time. On Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt assured reporters that the drones were not up to no good. Instead, the Federal Aviation Administration had authorized the drones to be flown for research and other purposes. “Many of these drones were also hobbyists — recreational and private individuals that enjoy flying drones,” adding, “This was not the enemy.” (Those statements echo ones made by the previous administration, with former National Security Council Communications Advisor John Kirby saying almost the exact same thing in December.)
- Russians are trying to stay in Syria. Since Syrian dictator Bashar al-Asad fled to Russia in December, one of the biggest questions has been whether the country’s new rulers will permit Russia to maintain its naval and air bases in Syria, both of which allow Russia to project its military power in the Mediterranean Sea and Africa. Russia’s 2015 intervention in Syria’s civil war kept Assad in power for several years. Now leaders from both countries are talking about the future of Russia’s military presence in Syria. One possible sticking point: Syria’s new leader has reportedly requested that the Russians hand over Assad. Iran’s revolutionaries similarly requested that the United States return the shah in 1979, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said. Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor at the time, refused, explaining, “To give you the shah would be incompatible with our national honor.”
- American fighters MIA in Ukraine: More than 20 Americans who went to Ukraine to fight against the Russians have been listed as missing in action, CNN recently reported. The bodies of at least five of those Americans have not been recovered from the battlefield. Task & Purpose wrote in 2023 about the legal obstacles that the families of missing American fighters face, including not being able to collect survivors’ benefits. The families of Americans who are killed or go missing in Ukraine are often also targeted by malign foreign actors online.
To paraphrase the poem “Boots” by Rudyard Kipling: Scroll, scroll, scroll. Reading up and down. There’s no discharge in the news.
See you next week.
Jeff Schogol