WASHINGTON — GOP Sen. Thom Tillis ripped Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Sunday, saying he gave President Trump bad advice on Iran and makes disastrous ex-cabinet member Kristi Noem look like “a five-star recruit.”
The retiring North Carolina pol and member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee blasted the Pentagon chief for allegedly overstating America’s military successes against Iran in the early stages of the war and for stopping a troop deployment to Poland, something Trump ended up reversing.
“When you tell the president that you have obliterated Iran and you’re in a position to pretty much dictate terms, and now you see what we have,” there’s an issue, said Tillis on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“When you see Hegseth pull back on operations in Poland when Ukraine — when Russia is raping, killing, murdering, torturing countless people in Ukraine — I think, with all these mistakes in total, it’s beginning to make Kristi Noem look like a five-star recruit,” he added, referring to the former Homeland Security secretary who spectacularly flamed out as her hubby’s cross-dressing “bimbo” fetish was revealed.
Hegseth had been one of the most fervent backers of Operation Epic Fury attacks against Iran.
Yet despite him touting the US decimating Iran’s missile stockpile and other key military assets, Tehran managed to inflict considerable economic pain by wreaking havoc in the Strait of Hormuz, through which more than a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil once flowed annually.
To effectively shut down the critical waterway, Iran has planted mines and used drone attacks to scare off ships from crossing it. The US has responded with a blockade of Iran’s ports.
As the deadly conflict drags on, multiple lawmakers have expressed concerns about US stockpiles of critical firepower, including Patriot interceptors and Tomahawk missiles.
“We were told about 11 weeks ago by Hegseth and Department of Defense that they had obliterated Iran’s defenses and it was just a matter of time before we had the nuclear material,” Tillis complained.
“Now we are talking about a posture where we may accept the nuclear material remaining in Iran? How does that make sense at all?”
He also dinged the rumored framework deal in the works with Iran as “questionable.”
Earlier this month, Hegseth stopped the deployment of 4,000 US troops to Poland as part of a scale-back from Europe. Trump later reversed that and ordered the deployment of 5,000 troops there. Some administration officials described the initial move as a delay.
Tillis, who decided last year not to run for re-election, had been one of Noem’s staunchest GOP critics before Trump axed her in March.
Last year, he had voted to confirm both her and Hegseth.
He hasn’t shied away from bashing Trump when he feels it’s appropriate, having previously crusaded to stop the criminal probe of former Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
