The White House doubled on Wednesday because of its insistence that its senior national security officials did nothing bad when they discussed a pending military strike in Yemen for a commercial messaging application known as Signal.
However, former military and intelligence officials say that there are little doubt that such exchanges should never have happened that way and warned that US troops could have put themselves at risk.
This is what you should know about the claims of the White House in the fin of the signal:
Experts say that the moment of pending military strikes has confused information closely
President Donald Trump and his main assistants are not denying that a group of chat began to talk about a pending military attack against Yemen.
The signal application on a smartphone is seen on the screen of a mobile device, on March 25, 2025, in Chicago.
Kiichiro Sato/AP
On the other hand, they insist that the information was not classified because the data did not include the location of the specific strikes or sources and methods. They also say they are investigating how the journalist, the Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg, was added inadvertently to the chain.
“There are no locations. There are no sources & Methods. There are no war plans, “National Security Advisor Mike Waltz wrote on Wednesday.
The Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, issued a similar statement, noting that location data or sources or methods did not compromise.
In the interviews, several former defense and intelligence officials insisted that an exact location of a strike is not needed so that the information is harmful to national security.
According to the Atlantic, Hegseth gave a detailed description of which the weapons systems would be used at specific times, including F-18 combat aircraft and Tomahawk missiles. The White House confirmed that the texts seem to be authentic.
“This is when the first bombs will definitely fall,” Hegseth wrote in a moment, pointing out the military time of 1415 (2:15 pm) for the planned strike.
The experts said that these details are so sensitive that if they are filtered, they could put the troops carrying out the strike in danger because it gives the adversary time to prepare to defend themselves.
“It was 100 percent classified,” said Darrell Blocker, former CIA field operation and ABC News taxpayer, said about the reported text exchange, based on his three decades with a security authorization.
Blocker added that Trump’s national security team “failed the soldiers, diplomats and intelligence officers not to adhere to their own rules and orders.”
ABC News collaborator Mick Mulroy, a former senior official of the Pentagon and CIA official, added that the location of a strike is not the most sensitive detail for an enemy to have.
“If they filter the enemy, they know where they are,” said Mulroy. “[Adversaries] I just need to know when and what platform search. “
The former officials also questioned whether the sources of intelligence were committed when Waltz reported in the chat that the “first type of missile” of the enemy had entered a building that collapsed after the attack.
Charles Kupperman, former National Security Advisor during Trump’s first mandate, said this detail probably suggests the use of a general surveillance drone or indicates intelligence such as device monitoring technology. But it could also reveal the presence of land assets in Sanaa tracking the movements of high Huti officials, he said.
“For us to know where this gentleman was at that exact moment means that you have real -time intelligence,” Kupperman said.
‘Attack plans’ can be as sensitive as ‘war plans’, experts say
Trump’s main assistants also seized the Atlantic that described the online chat group as discussing “war plans”, although in the subsequent report he used the term “attack plans.”
“The Atlantic has admitted: these were not” war plans, “wrote the press secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt on X on Wednesday.” This whole story was another deception written by a Trump enemy who is known for his sensationalist turn. “
In general, experts say that “war plans” could refer to broad plans for conflicts for another country, such as invading Iraq or responding to China’s aggression. Attack plans can refer to a more specific and specific military operation such as strikes in Yemen.
Both are highly sensitive and should not be discussed in unimrenized commercial applications for classified information, they say.
“Actually, it could be argued that attack plans are more sensitive because they are more detailed and specific in time, place and way,” Mulroy said.
The signal should not be supposed to be used to send sensitive and non -public data
At a press conference on Wednesday, Leavitt also insisted that it was fine that government officials used a sign.
“This is an approved application. It is an encrypted application,” he said.
The signal is considered a highly safe and encrypted application that can be used by government personnel. But, according to a recent policy published by the Pentagon, it does not seem authorized to transmit confidential information, such as the time of a military strike.
The Department of Defense did not answer the questions about current policy and if there were exceptions that would have allowed Hegseth to use the application to obtain confidential information.
According to the Memorandum of the October Defense Department of 2023, the signal and other messaging applications are considered not classified and the personnel are not told to transmit anything considered as “non -public.”
General Timothy Haugh, head of the National Security Agency, told legislators on Wednesday that the United States staff has been advised on the risks involved in the use of the signal.
“What we have done is make a warning on how to use the signal application and other encrypted applications because we encourage our employees and their families to use encrypted applications,” he said.
When asked if the notice was because there are risks for that application, Haugh replied: “There are.”
Brian O’Neill, former executive and intelligence veteran of the CIA, said that Signal would not be the approved place to discuss an objective that entered the building of his girlfriend who later collapsed.
If it is not a revelation of sources and methods, it occurs “very close,” he said.
“It’s nothing that is news for adversaries,” O’Neill continued. “But independently, this is not the channel to transmit that type of information.”
