On Wednesday, reporting from the Washington Post revealed that the Pentagon has removed decades of classified documents from a secret computer system used by defense officials and U.S. troops, a change insiders warn could “constrain urgent planning.” The move is part of an effort to address President Donald Trump’s obsession with plugging up leaks in his administration, and came after the Post published a story that revealed senior military officers’ concerns about the war with Iran.
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According to the Post, “Documents associated with the Secretary of Defense Orders Book (SDOB) were removed from an internal web portal on the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), three people familiar with the matter said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified system. It was not immediately clear if the documents remain otherwise available to U.S. personnel or how the reduction in access could complicate military planning. SIPRNet holds information that is labeled ‘secret,’ while top-secret information is held on more highly classified networks, where fewer people have access.”
The SDOB is an important tool for planning and communication. According to the Post, it “details the location and availability of U.S. warships, military units, weapons systems and other resources, and provides top generals and admirals a forum in which they can disagree with President Donald Trump and Hegseth while still carrying out their orders. They do so by ‘non-concurring,’ a process by which they explain reservations they may have or the detrimental effects of orders on other military plans. The SDOB, published twice per month, became the focus of intense discussion after The Post reported Sunday that several top generals and admirals cautioned Hegseth that prolonging large-scale operations against Iran is unsustainable and risks weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere. They did so by non-concurring in the SDOB.”
Military leaders who declared “non-concur” included General Alexus Grynkewich, the head of European Command; General Francis Donovan, the head of Southern Command; Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of Pacific Command; and Admiral Daryl Caudle, the chief of naval operations. Generals Kenneth S. Wilsbach, the chief of staff of the Air Force, and Christopher LaNeve, the acting chief of staff of the Army, agreed with Hegseth’s plan to extend the time of some of their units’ deployments, but they also emphasized that it would come with significant risk.
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As the Post elaborates, “For months, senior U.S. officials have increasingly raised concerns about the long-term impact of the war with Iran, which has stretched into its seventh month after Trump initially said it would take only a few weeks. The concerns include the massive expenditure of increasingly scarce munitions, such as Patriot missile interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the strain placed on the Navy’s fleet as it enforces a sea blockade that the Trump administration has imposed on Iran.”
Purging the SDOB or moving it to systems with higher levels of classification will “dramatically reduce the number of people who have direct access to it,” which can “constrain urgent planning,” said a former defense official who routinely reviewed those documents and spoke with the Post. According to the former official, commanders and their staffers depend on access to the SDOB to make time-sensitive decisions and notifications. Restricting access to that information will make it slower and harder to perform the logistical work and equipment rerouting necessary to perform vital actions, like sending aircraft and weapons from one command to another. The change, said the former official, does not make it impossible for those personnel to access strategic and operational documents, but it is now “certainly more difficult.”
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