Pressure mounts on US defence chief after Republican midterm election rout

WASHINGTON - US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth is under growing pressure, with victorious Democrats planning to target him in Congress and Republicans blaming the Iran war he championed for their election losses.Hegseth, a former Fox News co-host and National Guard officer, has survived repeated scandals since taking office in early 2025, but his time may be running out.President Donald Trump has stood by Hegseth so far, insisting that “he’s doing a very good job” when asked whether he was going to replace the Pentagon chief.But Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance have both blamed the Iran war – in which Hegseth is a key advocate and spokesman – for recent midterm election losses.Opposition Democrats won sweeping majorities in both houses of Congress this week, giving them the power to launch investigations and also to curb funding for the Defence Department and the Iran war.The conflict, which has seen Iran partially block the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway, has wreaked havoc on the global economy. Resulting price surges, especially of energy, have angered US voters.“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance said, while Trump said it was “largely true” that the conflict led to the election losses.‘Going after Pete Hegseth’Some US lawmakers have made clear that Hegseth, the Pentagon and the Iran war are in their sights.“I’m going after Pete Hegseth. Not only is he incompetent and corrupt, he’s undermining our national security and the safety of our troops,” said Representative Jason Crow, a Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee.Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the committee, said its top priority would be “to conduct vigorous oversight of the Department of Defence and the Trump Administration,” including on “the illegal war against Iran.”Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on Nov 5 that Hegseth “will not back down or be deterred by politicians seeking to score partisan points or launch phony investigations,” and that he is “100% committed” to leading the Defence Department until Trump’s term ends.Hegseth also faces a threat from a member of the Republican Party – Representative Thomas Massie – who plans to introduce articles of impeachment when the House is back in session next week.“There is one contingency in which I won’t reintroduce the articles of impeachment: Hegseth resigns,” Massie said.The anti-Trump lawmaker sought to impeach Hegseth earlier this year, but Republicans sent the House of Representatives into recess before a vote could be taken.Massie noted that “my Hegseth impeachment resolution is a much gentler version of what’s coming when Dem’s control Congress. They’ll have hearings & trials.”Repeated scandalsHegseth has been at the centre of a number of scandals and controversies, most recently over a plan – which Trump ultimately scrapped – for a military firing squad execution to be livestreamed.A few months after he took office, Hegseth was hit by a scandal related to strikes on Yemen.The Atlantic magazine revealed that its editor-in-chief had been inadvertently included in a Signal chat in which Hegseth and other officials discussed the imminent operation, with the Pentagon chief sending messages on the timing of strikes hours before they happened.Strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have also been a source of controversy, especially a 2025 attack that left survivors who were killed in a follow-up strike.In other contentious moves under Hegseth, numerous senior military personnel, including the country’s top-ranking officer, Charles “CQ” Brown, have been fired, often with little or no public explanation.Representative Smith said the boat strikes, Trump’s deployment of troops to US cities, and the “blatant and corrosive politicisation of our armed forces” are all “high on the list” of issues to be investigated by the new Congress. AFP