Navy personnel were not allowed to preemptively attack the terrorists, only to issue warnings to them, until they were personally in danger. Only then were they finally allowed to fight back.
U.S. Central Command proposed targeting Houthi bases to end the wave of attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea. The proposal went to the Pentagon where Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had undergone surgery to remove his prostate and had been released a week earlier. On Jan 1, Austin began experiencing severe pain and was taken to the hospital.
Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, a Pentagon bureaucrat with no meaningful military experience, was vacationing in Puerto Rico when she was told that she needed to take over for Austin who was in the ICU where he would stay for four days. She proposed cutting short her vacation and coming back in two days, rather than right away, but then she decided to stay on the beach and handle the responsibility for the national defense over Zoom. READ MORE
