THE SIGNAL LEAK AND THE BOMBING OF YEMENThe attacks on the Houthis shows that Trump is still set on targeting Iran
It’s taken me two weeks to learn what Pentagon investigators now believe was the route that led to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of Atlantic, getting the scoop of the year. It was the doing of a Defense Department aide who set up a fateful high-level group chat about a planned American bombing attack on Yemen and added Goldberg to the list of senior administration officials who would participate “initials only.” A more important question may be why the Trump administration’s top national security officials threw away the approved doctrine when it came to such sensitives issues as a planned bombing attack on Sanaa, the capital of Yemen and its largest city, as well as other sites and relied on Signal and not the most secure means of communication to discuss the top secret operational plan for a Navy bombing mission there. The messages received by Goldberg included a timeline for the attack and the aircraft that were being deployed. Goldberg waited until a week after the mission took place to write a story for his magazine about the messages he received. The scandal of the leak was another blow to Hegseth and raised suspicions about Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser. Waltz is not an amateur. He is a former Congressman and a former Army Special Forces officer, who worked under Vice President Dick Cheney in the second Bush administration. He was highly regarded by his peers then. The current US bombing of Yemen has been in response to the Houthis’ long-standing ties to Iran and its support for the Palestinians of Gaza who have been under off-and-on Israeli air force attacks since the Hamas uprising of October 7, 2023. The Houthis stopped their at-sea strikes when a ceasefire was reached in January. Israel broke the ceasefire and renewed its bombing last month. The Houthis returned to attacking international shipping in the Red Sea. The Navy’s mission is to destroy the Houthi chain of command, located in Sanaa, and limit the effectiveness of renewed Houthi attacks at sea. The Navy aircraft have been limited to specific military targets in and near the city, although the Houthis have complained about the targeting of clearly marked civilian sites, including a yet to be completed cancer hospital near the border with Saudi Arabia. The Associated Press reported last week that the American bombing had shifted from targeting missile launch sites in the mountains to “firing at ranking [Houthi] personnel as well as dropping bombs on city neighborhoods.” The British group Airwars, which focuses on Western airstrikes, was quoted: “Just because you can’t see civilian harm doesn’t mean it’s not happening.” The AP quoted a Houthi official saying that at least fifty-seven people had been killed. President Trump issued a bellicose message after authorizing the renewed bombing in Yemen on March 15, declaring that further Houthi attacks on international shipping at sea “will not be tolerated. We will use overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective. The Houthis have choked off shipping in one of most important Waterways of the world, grinding vast swaths of global commerce to a halt, and attacking the core principle of Freedom of Navigation.” He added a special warning to the leadership of Iran: “Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT threaten the American people, their President . . . BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable and, we won’t be nice about it.” As for the use of Signal when dealing with sensitive national security information, such as a planned bombing raid on Yemen, I asked someone who knew of the raid and its importance to the Trump administration. He replied, at length:
I asked a veteran US official about the international significance of the US attacks in Yemen, whose goal is eliminating the command and control of the Houthi forces now in Sanaa over their fellow soldiers who are spread throughout the mountains and caves to the east and south. Those fighters, operating in underground bunkers, have successfully launched Iranian-supplied missiles to attack commercial shipping in the Red Sea, but had to rely on target data from the senior command in Sanaa. His answer: “Sanaa? A Trump message to Iran. The Israeli bombing? A message to Hamas. Netanyahu’s occupation of the Mount Herman lowlands? A message to Syria. Trump’s reaction to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s foot dragging? A message to Russian politicians.” He was telling me what is in the ambitious and violent, if necessary, future foreign policy playbook, as of today, of Donald Trump. It begins, after Yemen, with Iran. Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Seymour Hersh, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe. © 2025 Seymour Hersh |