Archiv: Pete Hegseth


15.02.2025 - 06:45 [ CNN ]

Hegseth rules out NATO membership for Ukraine and says Europe must be responsible for country’s security

(February 12, 2025)

Later on Wednesday afternoon, Trump said he agrees with Hegseth and does not “think it’s practical” to have Ukraine join NATO.

“I don’t think it’s practical to have it. Personally, I know that our new secretary of defense is excellent. Pete made a statement today saying that he thinks it’s unlikely or impractical. I think probably that’s true. I think long before President Putin, they said there’s no way they’d allow that. This has been going on for many, many years. They’ve been saying that for a long time that Ukraine did not go into NATO, and I’m okay with that,” Trump said from the Oval Office.

15.02.2025 - 06:39 [ Voice of America ]

US defense chief: Return to Ukraine‘s 2014 borders ‚unrealistic‘

(February 12, 2025)

Speaking in Brussels at NATO headquarters, Hegseth told his fellow defense chiefs, „We want, like you, a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine. But we must start by recognizing that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective. Chasing this illusionary goal will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”

No peace talks have been scheduled, but Hegseth said any durable conclusion to the war must include „robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again.“

13.02.2025 - 03:05 [ American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ]

Re: Urgent Request for Access to and Information Regarding Immigrants Transferred from the United States and Detained at Guantánamo Bay

(February 7, 2025)

Dear Secretary Noem, Secretary Hegseth, and Secretary Rubio:
We write on behalf of the undersigned immigrants‘ rights and civil rights organizations to request immediate access to the noncitizens transferred from immigration detention facilities in the United States and currently detained at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Since February 4, 2025, the government has transferred nearly two dozen noncitizens to Guantánamo, without providing any information about their circumstances or the government’s legal authority for these unprecedented actions. The government has also announced that it is planning to send tens of thousands of additional immigration detainees to Guantánamo in the near future.

The Constitution, and federal and international law prohibit the government from using Guantánamo as a legal black hole. We therefore request that the government provide our organizations access to the noncitizens detained at Guantánamo so that those individuals will have access to legal counsel, and so advocates and the public can understand the conditions
under which the government is detaining them. We also request basic information that the public has a right to know regarding the noncitizens being sent to Guantánamo and the government’s plans for them.

(…)

Sincerely,
American Civil Liberties Union
Americans for Immigrant Justice
Amica Center
American Gateways
Center for Constitutional Rights
Haitian Bridge Alliance
Human Rights First
International Refugee Assistance Project
Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the SF Bay Area
National Immigrant Justice Center
National Immigration Law Center
Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights
Texas Civil Rights Project

04.02.2025 - 17:34 [ Rudaw.net ]

President Barzani, anti-ISIS coalition commander discuss ISIS ‘dangers’

When ISIS seized swathes of Iraqi land in 2014, Peshmerga played a key role in driving the extremist group out of the areas disputed between Erbil and Baghdad, especially Kirkuk. The US-led global coalition provided Peshmerga and Iraqi forces with military assistance to defeat ISIS territorially, which was completed in 2017.

Barzani and Leahy also discussed the latest developments in Syria and their impact on neighboring countries.

04.02.2025 - 17:24 [ Associated Press ]

Regime change in Syria has Iraqi factions backtracking on push for US withdrawal

(January 31, 2025)

The U.S. and Iraq announced an agreement last year to wind down the military mission in Iraq of an American-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group by September 2025, with U.S. forces departing some bases where they have stationed troops during a two-decade-long military presence in the country. (…)

But the fall of Assad in a lightning offensive led by Sunni Islamist rebels in December led some to reassess that stance, including members of the Coordination Framework, a coalition of mainly Shiite, Iran-allied political parties that brought current Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani to power in late 2022.

13.11.2024 - 13:35 [ New York Times ]

Trump Picks Pete Hegseth, a Veteran and Fox News Host, for Defense Secretary

The choice of Mr. Hegseth was outside the norm of the traditional defense secretary. But he was a dedicated supporter of Mr. Trump during his first term, defending his interactions with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, embracing his “America First” agenda of trying to withdraw U.S. troops from abroad and energetically taking up the cause of combat veterans accused of war crimes.
(…)
He served in the Army in Afghanistan and Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

A Minnesota native, Mr. Hegseth graduated from Princeton University, where he was the publisher of The Princeton Tory, a conservative magazine, for which he wrote about seeing the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled in Baghdad in 2003.