Hegseth Must Account for the Breaches That Left Three Soldiers Dead and a Fourth Missing
Iran's missiles are beating US air defenses and the Pentagon hid the proof. The Houthis just moved on the last open oil route.
Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas, and 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, died at a base their own government already knew Iran could hit.
In the week before the missiles that killed them, Iran struck Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan three separate times, Eric Schmitt reports in the New York Times. Those strikes injured dozens of American service members and wrecked helicopters. Central Command announced none of it — not the strikes, not the wounded, not the damage. When CENTCOM did speak last week, it described its own attacks on Iran as retaliation for strikes on shipping, never mentioning that American bases were being hit.
Then, on Friday and Saturday, the fourth and deadliest barrage came to the same base. Gonzales died Friday. Feehan died Saturday. A fourth soldier is missing — remains recovered Sunday are believed to be his, awaiting confirmation. And a third American died Saturday in northern Iraq, disposing of a downed Iranian attack drone; the Pentagon has not released his name. Three dead since Friday. One missing. Both named dead were air-defense soldiers — Gonzales with the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, Feehan with the 32nd — manning the systems Iran had spent the week beating.
A U.S. official has now conceded what the silence concealed: Iran adapted. Its missiles fly faster and maneuver as they descend, and four strikes on one base in one week signal Tehran found a seam in the American shield. Rubio's own description of Friday: most missiles intercepted, one "leaked through." Three earlier breaches say it was not one.
Disclosure is the mechanism that protects soldiers. A country told Iran was repeatedly breaching an American base would have demanded the fix — or the pullback — before the fourth barrage, not after. And disclosure would have surfaced the second secret under the first: the interceptors themselves. The administration has never said how badly this war has drained its costliest weapons; reporting since spring says severely. Do the batteries defending those bases have the missiles to keep defending them? Which other bases share the seam? Bahrain's sirens sounded twice after dawn Monday; Kuwait intercepted drones the same morning. How much else don't we know?
