Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared to acknowledge that the Pentagon has developed plans to take over Greenland and Panama by force if necessary but refused to answer repeated questions at a hotly combative congressional hearing Thursday about his use of Signal chats to discuss military operations.
Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee repeatedly got into heated exchanges with Hegseth, with some of the toughest lines of questioning coming from military veterans as many demanded yes or no answers and he tried to avoid direct responses about his actions as Pentagon chief.
In one back-and-forth, Hegseth did provide an eyebrow-raising answer. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., asked whether the Pentagon has developed plans to take Greenland or Panama by force if necessary.
I find that a credible thought, though one would imagine an answer to say that they try to have plans for any concevaiable scenario, no matter how unlikely, and have done so for years.
One would imagine if he was good at this politics thing, he would have found an answer to distance such plans from the current contentious situation.
And upon reading, he said precisely that…
Or not even mention them at all, because what possible beneficial purpose could there be to divulging anything related to your military strategy or planning beforehand?