Kratos SRE Inc., a subsidiary of Kratos Defense, and Halo Aeronautics are among the more than two dozen vendors taking part in the first phase of the Defense Department’s Drone Dominance Program, the department said in a statement.

“Drone dominance is a process race as much as a technological race,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a July 2025 memo that the department highlighted. “We are buying what works — fast, at scale, and without bureaucratic delay. Lethality will not be hindered by self-imposed restrictions.”

Hegseth’s memo followed a June 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump that spelled out ways for the U.S. to improve its military and commercial drone capabilities, focusing on inexpensive, American-made combat drones.

The evaluation for the first phase, which the DOD dubbed the Gauntlet, will start Feb. 18 at Fort Benning, Georgia, and finish in early March. After military operators fly and evaluate the proposed vendors’ systems, the department will place about $150 million in orders for prototype drones.

Those prototypes will be delivered over the following five months, per the DOD. The department said in an early December release that it planned to have 12 vendors produce a total of 30,000 drones, at $5,000 per unit.

Hegseth’s Drone Dominance Program, which was rolled out in early December with a request for information, aims to quickly and inexpensively acquire hundreds of thousands of one-way attack drones by 2027.

Ukraine has used such “kamikaze” drones extensively in its fight against Russia’s invasion over the last four years, and it has drawn attention to their effectiveness in a modern war.

Hegseth said in December that the military can’t afford to continue to use costly munitions worth millions of dollars apiece to take out inexpensive enemy drones, and that a cheaper arsenal of attack drones is critical.

The Pentagon expects to spend $1.1 billion on the program over its four phases and wants to have “warfighters” be the ones evaluating how well potential drones work.

The department intends to buy large amounts of drones on a regular schedule, which will create a stable demand signal allowing industry to build out its own capacity.

The following three phases will see the number of vendors decline from 12 to 5, the DOD said in December, as the number of drones ordered will grow to 150,000 and the price will drop to $2,300.

The competitive cycles for improving these drones will be “measured in months, not years,” the Pentagon said.

The companies competing in “Gauntlet I” are:

• Anno.Ai Inc.
• Ascent Aerosystems Inc.
• Auterion Government Solutions Inc.
• DZYNE Technologies
• Ewing Aerospace
• Farage Precision
• Firestorm Labs
• General Cherry Corp.
• Greensight Inc.
• Griffon Aerospace Inc.
• Halo Aeronautics
• Kratos SRE
• Modalai Inc.
• Napatree Technology
• Neros Inc.
• Oksi Ventures Inc.
• Paladin Defense Services
• Performance Drone Works
• Responsibly LTD
• Swarm Defense Technologies
• Teal Drones Inc.
• Ukrainian Defense Drones Tech Corp.
• Vector Defense Inc.
• W.S. Darley & Co.
• XTEND Reality Inc.

In materials released Monday, the House Appropriations Committee said the compromise $839 billion spending bill would provide $3.9 billion for the military’s sixth-generation aircraft. That would include $3 billion for the Air Force’s F-47 fighter, which will be built by Boeing, and $972 million for the Navy’s F/A-XX, the House committee said.

That would be hundreds of millions more than the Pentagon requested in its original proposed 2026 budget last summer, which requested nearly $2.6 billion for the F-47 and just $74 million for the Navy’s F/A-XX.

The F-47, also known as Next Generation Air Dominance, will be an advanced fighter designed to replace the F-22 Raptor. It is intended to fly alongside multiple autonomous drone wingmen, called collaborative combat aircraft, and have advanced stealth capabilities and greater range than the F-22 and F-35.

The spending bill also would prevent the Air Force from canceling its E-7 Wedgetail airborne battle management aircraft program.

While top service leaders had for years stressed the need to acquire the Boeing-made E-7 to replace the aging E-3 Sentry, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expressed skepticism about the program’s future use in a June 2025 hearing and suggested a space-based system would be better. When the Pentagon’s budget proposal emerged later that month, it called for canceling the E-7, which is already flown by Australia and in the works for other allies.

Congressional appropriators appear to disagree. The House said the spending bill would provide $1.1 billion for the E-7 program.

The spending bill would also be in line with the Pentagon’s proposed reduction in the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters purchased in 2026. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps combined bought 75 F-35s from Lockheed Martin in 2025. But the Pentagon’s proposed budget called for 47 F-35s in all in 2026, including 24 F-35As for the Air Force.

The conferenced defense bill would provide $7.6 billion for 47 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, across those three services. It would also provide $440 million for spare parts for both the F-35 and its engine, the F135.

The Pentagon said last summer that it planned to redirect money that would have gone to buying more F-35s into sustainment of the jets and strengthening its supply base, as well as ensuring its Block 4 upgrades stay on track.

Block 4 upgrades will allow the F-35 to carry more weapons, improve its electronic warfare capabilities and upgrade its sensors, communications and navigation. But the effort is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, and the F-35 program has scaled back its plans for those upgrades to focus on the capabilities that can be delivered in the next five years.

The defense spending bill would boost spending on the EA-37B Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft by $474 million, to buy two more of the planes.

And it would provide $1.9 billion for the B-21 Raider, Northrop Grumman’s sixth-generation stealth bomber.

The spending bill would also provide $27.2 billion for the Navy to build 17 ships, including a Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, two Virginia-class fast attack subs, three medium landing ships and an anti-submarine warfare ship, the House said. The Senate said the conference bill increases spending on Columbia- and Virginia-class subs by $5.9 billion.

The bill also fully funds the Air Force’s LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program.

The total far surpassed the previous record of 142 F-35s for 2021. It follows two slower years for F-35 deliveries — 98 in 2023 and 110 in 2024 — that were due to the Defense Department decision to stop accepting new F-35s because of problems with Technology Refresh 3, or TR-3, updates. Over that three-year span, Lockheed delivered an average of 133 F-35s each year.

TR-3 upgrades provide better displays, computer memory and processing power. The package’s hardware and software updates were necessary before a more expansive modernization, known as Block 4, could begin.

However, TR-3 suffered numerous delays, and in July 2023, the government stopped accepting deliveries of new F-35s that were meant to have TR-3 installed. That delivery halt lasted a year, and Lockheed stored dozens of brand-new jets at its facilities, primarily in Fort Worth, Texas.

Lockheed Martin and the government focused on getting a partial, or “truncated,” version of TR-3’s software working well enough to lift the delivery halt, which happened in July 2024. The delivery backlog was cleared out in May of last year, Lockheed said.

But the delayed deliveries — as well as the fact that TR-3 could initially only be used for training missions, not combat missions — had ripple effects on the Air Force and other services. Lockheed reportedly said in June 2025 it had delivered the last software update needed to complete TR-3 last year.

Lockheed said that the nearly 1,300 F-35s in operation worldwide have recorded more than 1 million flight hours. The F-35 also played critical roles in combat operations around the world, including suppressing Iran’s air defenses during the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities known as Operation Midnight Hammer.

Also last summer, Dutch F-35s, flying alongside Polish fighters engaged and shot down multiple Russian drones in Poland’s airspace. This marked the first time NATO F-35s engaged threats in allied air space, Lockheed said.

The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which the House passed Dec. 10, will now head to President Donald Trump, who has pledged to sign it. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill 77-20.

The bill was praised by the top two senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who said it makes critical investments to strengthen the U.S. military.

“The bill sets us on a path to modernize our defense capabilities and augment our drone manufacturing, shipbuilding efforts, and the development of innovative low-cost weapons,” Wicker said.

The discretionary defense spending authorized in the bill would be $8 billion more than the Pentagon requested earlier this year, and fully fund major programs such as the Golden Dome for America missile defense shield and the F-47 advanced fighter, as well as providing the Navy funds to build more submarines and destroyers.

Wicker also lauded the bill’s provisions that seek to improve the Pentagon’s budget and acquisition processes. An executive summary of the bill said it adopted key provisions from Wicker’s Fostering Reform and Government Efficiency in Defense, or FORGED, Act that seeks to speed up development and production of new weapons by prioritizing commercial acquisition, slashing red tape and expanding the industrial base.

“In this NDAA, my colleagues and I have prioritized the structural rebuilding of the arsenal of democracy and returning the department to its warfighting mission,” Wicker said. “Crucially, it also contains the most sweeping upgrades to the Pentagon’s business practices in 60 years — a watershed moment for our military.”

The bill also seeks to reform the Joint Requirements Oversight Council by cutting “bureaucratic validation of service requirements,” the executive summary said, and instead focusing on fixing joint operational problems.

The NDAA authorizes funds to give troops a 3.8% pay raise, and would create a senior-level Defense Property Management Office to “fix unacceptable outcomes for military families during the moving process,” Wicker and Reed said.

“We face significant national security challenges, but this NDAA makes meaningful progress toward meeting them,” Reed said. “It enhances military readiness, supports service members and their families, modernizes combat platforms, and invests in critical technologies.”

The NDAA also includes a provision that would withhold 25% of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until he sends congressional committees overseeing the military “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations” in the Caribbean region. This is intended to push Hegseth to release more information on controversial strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats from Venezuela.

The bill would bar the Pentagon from cutting the U.S. military’s force posture in Europe or giving up the United States’ role in filling the Supreme Allied Commander-Europe position that commands NATO, until the secretary of defense assesses how those changes would affect U.S. and NATO interests and certifies to Congress that it would be in the national interest. It also would authorize a $200 million increase for U.S. European Command security assistance.

The NDAA contains provisions that seek to bolster allied and friendly nations against Russian aggression. It would establish a Baltic Security Initiative and authorize $175 million to “strengthen front-line deterrence against Russian aggression,” the executive summary said. It would also extend the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative through 2028 and authorize $400 million in funding for 2026 and 2027. And it requires the secretary of defense to notify Congress if any decision is made to modify, restrict or terminate military intelligence, imagery intelligence or other such support to Ukraine.

It also fully funds the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, strengthens activities related to the AUKUS agreement between the U.S., U.K. and Australia and provides new authorities for cooperating with Taiwan.

The bill would also prohibit the Air Force from cutting its fleet of A-10 Warthog attack planes below 103 in 2026, and extend a prohibition on the Air Force retiring RQ-4 Global Hawk drones to 2030. And it requires the Air Force to keep at least 90 days’ worth of spare parts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter by the end of September 2028.

In its report, “Osprey Aircraft: Additional Oversight and Information Sharing Would Improve Safety Efforts,” the GAO said Osprey program stakeholders — including its Joint Program Office and the services that fly it — have not routinely shared information on important areas, including hazard and accident reporting, aircraft knowledge and emergency procedures, and maintenance data on parts and components commonly used across the different types of V-22.

As a result, known problems with the Osprey have remained unresolved for years and in some cases at least a decade, the GAO said.

Without setting an oversight structure that clearly defines roles and responsibilities for fixing the Osprey’s known safety risks, the report said, the Pentagon cannot be sure those problems will be fully resolved.

The Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy have a fleet of more than 400 Ospreys, which can take off and land like a helicopter, and then switch to forward flight like an airplane. This makes them ideally suited to take off and land from aircraft carriers, as well as for transporting special operations forces to and from austere environments where typical runways may not exist.

The aircraft has had above-average accident rates over the years, and some high-profile and tragic crashes that killed service members.

The GAO said the Marine Corps and Air Force rates of serious accidents in the Osprey over the last decade was, in nearly all years, higher than the services’ overall fixed-wing and rotary-wing accident rates.

That included four fatal accidents since 2022 that killed 20 service members, according to the report. The GAO said the Marine Corps and Air Force both saw serious accident rates in their Osprey variants rise in 2023 and 2024. Serious accidents are class A and B mishaps that result in death, permanent disability, extensive hospitalization, at least $600,000 in property damage or a destroyed aircraft.

Between 2015 and 2024, the only year serious Osprey accident rates were lower than average was in 2019, and even then only for the Marine Corps, the GAO said.

Most serious Osprey accidents were reportedly caused by airframe or engine component failure, or human error during flight or maintenance, according to the report. Materiel failures included problems with the Osprey’s proprotor gearbox clutches, which lead to lurching “hard clutch engagements” and could endanger flights, as well as vibration and chipping in the gearboxes and erosion of rotor blades.

The GAO said accident investigators concluded that in two of the four recent fatal Osprey accidents, a combined hard clutch engagement and catastrophic failure of proprotor gearbox components were factors.

Some Ospreys have also had problems with their engines rapidly losing or surging power during reduced visibility landings when flying over sand and dust.

In one instance, a Marine Corps Osprey crashed in Hawaii during a May 2015 training flight after sand was sucked into one of its engines while landing, causing the engine to stall. Two Marines died in that crash, and another 20 were injured.

But the GAO said the stakeholders charged with running the Osprey program, including the V-22 Joint Program Office and military services that fly them, have not fully identified or analyzed those problems, or responded with solutions to fix those procedural or materiel safety issues. The services and Osprey JPO had closed 45 risk assessments at the time of the GAO’s review, but 34 remained open, including eight serious — and potentially catastrophic — risks that had been open for a median period of 10 years.

Another 18 risks were deemed medium, and either potentially catastrophic or critical, and had been open for a median duration of nearly nine years, according to the report.

The GAO recommended that the defense secretary ensure the Navy and Air Force secretaries, along with the top generals in the Marine Corps, Air Force, Navy and Air Force Special Operations Command, work together to improve the joint Osprey program’s process for identifying, analyzing and responding to all safety risks.

This should include creating an oversight structure that clearly defines roles and responsibilities for resolving safety risks promptly and periodically reviewing efforts to fix them, the GAO said.

The GAO also recommended those top officials establish a routine system, such as a regularly occurring multiservice conference, to share information on the Osprey and emergency procedures. And the officials should conduct a comprehensive review of maintenance guidance and inspection procedures and update them as needed so Osprey units are using a system to track aircraft components, the GAO said.

The Pentagon agreed with the GAO’s recommendations and said it would take action to incorporate them into its Osprey policies and procedures.

The National Defense Authorization Act will now head to the Senate for final passage, after its 312-112 approval in the House.

The NDAA also aims to pressure Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to release more information on controversial strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats from Venezuela, including video of the strikes, and the orders to use lethal force.

The bill would withhold 25% of Hegseth’s travel budget until he sends the House and Senate armed services committees “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations” in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility.

The administration has forcefully defended those strikes, which killed dozens of people, as necessary to halt the flow of illegal drugs to the United States. Critics, including multiple former military lawyers, have raised multiple alarms about those strikes and said they could amount to war crimes or even murder of noncombatant civilians.

The controversy boiled over in recent weeks after the Washington Post revealed the first such airstrike was followed by a “double-tap” strike about 45 minutes later, which reportedly killed two survivors clinging to their boat’s wreckage.

Lawmakers viewed footage — so far publicly unreleased — of that strike, and emerged divided on what it showed. Some Republicans said the video showed the second strike was justified, but Democratic lawmakers called it highly disturbing and said it requires more scrutiny.

Hegseth has demurred on releasing video of that “double tap” strike, though the Pentagon has released videos of multiple other boat strikes.

The NDAA also wants Hegseth to submit to lawmakers copies of each order to execute these lethal strikes.

The NDAA also wants Hegseth to submit a report, which the previous authorization act required, on how the Defense Department is identifying and implementing lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

The White House said in a Tuesday statement that President Donald Trump supports the bill, S.1071, and would sign it, lauding its codifying of more than a dozen executive orders and actions, including the Golden Dome for America missile defense program.

The NDAA would repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force that for decades was used to support U.S. actions in the Middle East. The White House said in the statement of administration policy that repealing those AUMFs supports Trump’s goal of “ending ‘forever wars.’”

The bill would also authorize the Pentagon to sign multiyear procurement contracts for critical munitions, which the administration said would save taxpayers money. Multiyear procurements are also intended to make it easier for defense contractors to expand their industrial capacity to make munitions, since they would be certain of business in years to come.

Google Cloud’s Gemini for Government is the first AI capability to be launched on GenAI.mil, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a video posted on social media Tuesday.

“The future of American warfare is here, and it’s spelled AI,” Hegseth said in the video.

“This platform [GenAI.mil] puts the world’s most powerful frontier AI models, starting with Google Gemini, directly into the hands of every American warrior,” he said.

Users must have a common access card from the department to log onto GenAI.mil; it cannot be accessed by unauthorized personnel.

Hegseth said the department is not “sitting idly by” as adversaries take advantage of rapid technological advancements.

“At the click of a button, AI models on GenAI can be utilized to conduct deep research, format documents and even analyze video or imagery at unprecedented speed,” Hegseth said in the video.

In a written statement also released Tuesday by the Pentagon, Hegseth said the department is “pushing all of our chips in on artificial intelligence as a fighting force.”

The Pentagon also said its AI work followed President Donald Trump’s July order “to achieve an unprecedented level of AI technological superiority.”

Gemini for Government will use “intelligent agentic workflows,” or AI processes where autonomous programming makes decisions and takes actions with minimal human involvement, and will allow defense personnel to experiment more with these capabilities, the department said.

“There is no prize for second place in the global race for AI dominance,” Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said in a statement. “We are moving rapidly to deploy powerful AI capabilities like Gemini for Government directly to our workforce. AI is America’s next Manifest Destiny, and we’re ensuring that we dominate this new frontier.”

Elon Musk’s xAI, Anthropic and OpenAI are some of the other AI programs the department has considered to help with national security missions. Intelligence analysis, logistics and data collection are some of the duties that the department hopes could be improved by using AI.

The Pentagon said it will provide free training to all department employees on how to use the GenAI.mil website. Those training sessions are meant to build employees’ confidence in using AI tools, and teach them how to use those capabilities to their greatest potential.

The department stressed the need for security when using this program, and said all tools on the GenAI website will be considered controlled unclassified information, or CUI, and secured well enough to be used operationally.

Gemini for Government is web-grounded against Google Search to keep the information it produces accurate and dramatically reduce “the risk of AI hallucinations.”

The Pentagon said its Office of Research and Engineering’s AI Rapid Capabilities Cell led to the development of these capabilities.

The NDAA language, which lawmakers released Sunday night, would earmark $162 billion for procurement spending, and another $146 billion for research, development test and evaluation. It calls for $291 billion for operations and maintenance and another $234 billion for military personnel and health spending.

The policy bill would fund several of President Donald Trump’s top defense priorities, including the sweeping Golden Dome missile defense program, the Air Force’s F-47 and Navy’s F/A-XX next-generation fighters, the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, Air Force drone wingmen referred to as collaborative combat aircraft, submarines and warships.

But it does not contain language that would formally change the Defense Department’s official name to the War Department, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s preferred moniker. Hegseth often emphasizes the adoption of the War Department name as signifying a shift in focus towards lethality, but it would take an act of Congress to officially rename it.

In all, the NDAA would authorize more than $38 billion to develop, procure or modernize existing aircraft across the military.

It would also authorize $26 billion in shipbuilding funds to build or support the third Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine and one Virginia-class submarine, as well as advanced procurement for future submarines and future DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, full funding for the Ford-class aircraft carrier program, one anti-submarine warfare auxiliary ship and two ship-to-shore connector landing craft.

It also would authorize more than $25 billion to replenish the nation’s stock of critical munitions, including precision strike missiles, joint air-to-ground missiles, Naval Strike Missiles, Javelins, Stingers, Sidewinders, Tomahawks, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, artillery rounds and joint direct attack munitions.

The NDAA would authorize the Pentagon to buy 47 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in total across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. That is in line with the Pentagon’s original budget request released this past summer, and would be a reduction from the 69 the Pentagon had originally expected to buy this year. The military bought 74 F-35s in 2025.

The Pentagon’s proposed 2026 budget said that the Air Force expected to buy 24 F-35A fighters, a little more than half of the 44 jets it bought in 2025.

The department said this summer that instead of buying as many F-35s, it wanted to spend more money on sustaining the jets and making sure it had a strong supply base that can support operations and maintenance, as well as making sure the planned upgrades, known as Block 4, stay on track.

The House Armed Services Committee said in an August report on its initial version of the NDAA that it supported the Pentagon’s decision to shift its focus more to sustainment and improvements, saying that approach is necessary to ensure the jets are ready to “fight tonight.”

The compromise NDAA would require the military to build up its stockpile of spare F-35 parts, and have at least 90 days’ worth of parts on hand by the end of September 2028.

The NDAA will also keep requiring the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the F-35 program each year, and for the secretary of defense to develop a plan to acquire and integrate open mission systems architecture into F-35 jets.

The NDAA would provide a reprieve for the Air Force’s E-7 Wedgetail airborne battle management program, of which Hegseth has been skeptical and the Pentagon sought to kill in its budget proposal.

Lawmakers would bar the Pentagon from canceling Boeing’s rapid prototype contract for the first two E-7s, or shutting down production lines of the jet, which is already flown by Australia.

The bill would require the Air Force to keep at least 103 A-10 Warthog aircraft until the end of September 2026, as well as providing a report by the end of March on the service’s plans to retire the rest of the jets before fiscal 2029, and how they will be replaced.

The bill would provide nearly $2.6 billion for the Air Force’s F-47 next-generation fighter, in line with the service’s request.

It would also require the Air Force secretary to send the House and Senate defense committees a report on the F-47 program by March 2027. This report would include a description of the F-47’s requirements and projected costs and schedule through 2034, and an acquisition strategy.

Congress also wants to see a proposed strategy to field the F-47, including estimated force structure, construction and personnel training requirements; strategic basing considerations; and a strategy to integrate Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units into F-47 operations.

The Air Force would have to show Congress a plan to extend the life of its arsenal of roughly 400 LGM-30G Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles until the successor LGM-35A Sentinel nuclear missile is fully operational.

The bill would also bar the Air Force from reducing its arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles to fewer than 400, and keep at least 450 launch silos operational.

And the Air Force would not be able to accept more than 188 KC-46A Pegasus aerial refueling tankers until the department shows Congress a plan to correct all of its remaining major deficiencies.

The report, which was dated Dec. 2 and publicly released Thursday, found that Hegseth has the authority to decide whether information should be classified, and he determined the details he shared in a March 15 Signal chat “were either not classified or that he could safely declassify and use to create an ‘unclassified summary’ to provide to the Signal chat participants.”

One of those chat participants was, apparently unknowingly to Hegseth and other government officials, Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who later that month published a bombshell report on the security breach.

Even if rules against disclosing classified information were not breached, the IG said Hegseth’s sharing of nonpublic information so close to an airstrike operation carried significant risks.

In the chat, the IG said, Hegseth disclosed the “quantity and strike times of manned U.S. aircraft over hostile territory over an unapproved, unsecure network approximately 2 to 4 hours before the execution of those strikes.”

“Using a personal cell phone to conduct official business and send nonpublic DoD information through Signal risks potential compromise of sensitive DoD information, which could cause harm to DoD personnel and mission objectives,” the report said.

The release of the long-awaited report reignited the controversy that followed Goldberg’s initial reports on the chats, which came to be known as Signalgate.

Some lawmakers called for Hegseth’s resignation in blistering statements.

“This was a rookie mistake that could have had dire consequences for our service members who put their lives on the line for our nation every day,” said House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Sarah Elfreth, D-Md.

“I am calling for [Hegseth’s] immediate resignation. In the coming days, I will use every tool at my disposal to hold him publicly accountable and restore the public’s faith in those who lead us and are responsible for our national security,” she said.

The Pentagon pushed back on the report, highlighting the IG’s observation that Hegseth had the authority as secretary to declassify information.

The report “totally exonerates Pete Hegseth,” Timothy Parlatore, Hegseth’s attorney and adviser, said in a video interview with conservative media outlet Real America’s Voice, which the Pentagon shared on its social media accounts.

“There’s no classified material in those texts,” Parlatore said. “Everything he declassified, he has within his authority to declassify.”

The IG said that then-U.S. Central Command commander Army Gen. Erik Kurilla sent four emails on March 14 and 15 that were classified “secret” and “not releasable to foreign nationals” to Hegseth and the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff outlining plans for the strike, including operational details and updates. There were no markings within the emails indicating some elements were classified and others were not, the IG said, so investigators concluded all information in CENTCOM’s emails was classified.

On the day of the strike, Saturday, March 15, Hegseth and two assistants were at his home at Fort McNair in a temporary sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF. Hegseth sent information about the upcoming strike to a group chat, labeled “Houthi PC Small Group” that also included Vice President JD Vance, now-former national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Goldberg, who Waltz had added to the group, apparently by mistake.

Hegseth sent messages outlining, to the minute, when two waves of F-18 Hornet fighters were planned to launch, and approximately when each group of jets would hit their targets. Hegseth’s message also detailed plans for drone and Tomahawk missile strikes, the report said.

The strike plan information “substantially restated details” from CENTCOM commander Kurilla’s first email from March 14, which was marked SECRET/NOFORN, the IG said.

Former defense officials who spoke with Defense News at the time said such specific information about strike packages would typically be considered classified. Had information on the specific timing of aircraft launches, and their arrival at the targets, fallen into the hands of the Houthi terrorists the U.S. was targeting, the Houthis could have more easily targeted U.S. aircraft, experts said.

Hegseth declined the IG’s request for an interview, but provided a written statement in July, in which he said he determined that information did not need to be classified.

“I took non-specific general details which I determined, in my sole discretion, were either not classified, or that I could safely declassify [and created an] unclassified summary” of CENTCOM’s strike details, Hegseth said in his written response.

The IG concluded Hegseth does have the authority to decide what information should be classified.

But the IG said that his use of Signal, an unapproved commercially available messaging program on his personal cell phone, to send sensitive nonpublic operational information a few hours before the strikes occurred did not comply with the department’s rules on using personal devices for official business.

The Defense Department allows the use of personal devices for official government business, and the use of nonapproved, commercially available messaging applications, only in certain circumstances such as an emergency and if other official communications methods are unavailable, impractical or unreliable.

The report said that a DOD lawyer provided more context for the IG to consider, but did not provide supporting documentation to verify its claims. For that reason, the IG said, it did not include the provided context in the report’s release.

As part of the sweeping reform to the military’s acquisition processes that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unveiled Friday, the Pentagon plans to transform program executive officers into “portfolio acquisition executives.” Those executives, who will oversee major weapons system programs, are meant to have more authority to shift course when they feel it is necessary.

“We intend to [give portfolio acquisition executives] greater flexibility when it comes to reallocating resources and trading requirements, in order to … [deliver] a system at speed and on time,” Michael Duffey, the Defense Department’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said in a call with reporters Monday. That includes “an overall shift from a culture of compliance to one of calculated risk-taking.”

When asked about the potential for a faster acquisition cycle raising the possibility of increased risk to programs, Duffey stressed that while the department is “emphasizing speed, we’re not mandating speed.” This is a key reason the department aims to give portfolio acquisition executives more flexibility on resources and requirements.

“We’re continuing to be dependent on the judgment of program leaders who are executing these programs to understand where does the need for speed balance with the risk that we would undertake to cost and/or performance of the system,” Duffey said.

In his speech Friday, Hegseth said the Pentagon will be more willing to buy a system the provides “the 85% solution,” even if it is not meeting all requirements at first, and then improving it over time until it reaches full capability.

Duffey said Monday that portfolio acquisition executives could play a major role in deciding whether to go with a system that provides most, but not all, capabilities.

That executive “is basically accountable for delivering a system within a schedule, and with capability,” Duffey said.

“As he goes down the road of delivering that, he will likely discover where those two things come into conflict. And as a result of this process, we’ll be able to quickly facilitate a discussion with the right folks to find out, is it worth waiting for that extra 10% of capability? Or is it worth delivering it now and sacrificing that extra 10% of capability?”

The details on how this arrangement will work are still being worked out, Duffey said. However, he predicted portfolio acquisition executives will likely be able to make that decision on their own on lower-priority matters, but more important capabilities will require “a broader conversation.”

The Pentagon also wants to keep talented program executive officers, program managers, and those in other vital leadership positions in their jobs longer. That way, those leaders can stay long enough to have a more significant impact on their programs, and “benefit from the incentives and accountability that drives performance over longer terms,” the department’s acquisition strategy said.

Duffey said the department already has flexible contracting mechanisms such as other transactional authorities, or OTAs, in place it can make greater use of to make the acquisition process more nimble.

Two pieces of legislation — HR 3838, the Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery, or SPEED, Act and S 5618, the Fostering Reform and Government Efficiency in Defense, or FoRGED, Act — have largely been folded into versions of the next National Defense Authorization Act.

The SPEED Act, which was proposed by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, aims to overhaul acquisition regulations and exempt smaller programs, giving program executive officers clear authority and budget flexibility while holding them accountable for success or failure, and creating a faster requirements process that focuses on the problem the system is trying to solve.

The FoRGED Act, introduced by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., similarly aims to cut red tape, empower program executive officers, focus Pentagon contracting on more efficient commercial procedures, and encourage more sourcing for contracts.

Duffey said the provisions from those two bills included in the 2026 NDAA would help the department. As the department proceeds with its acquisition reforms, Duffey said he expects it will find more areas it needs congressional help with and he pledged to follow up with lawmakers.

“We’ve already gotten bicameral, bipartisan support for our initiative and a willingness to work with us on whatever additional authorities we need,” Duffey said.