The general who took questions at the department’s only formal briefing of the first hundred days is one of four who objected. His objection is now harder to reach.
WASHINGTON—Citing three people familiar with the classified system, The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the Pentagon has removed decades of documents associated with the Secretary of Defense Orders Book from an internal web portal on the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network. The removal followed the paper’s account of senior officers cautioning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the Iran campaign. Those officers had registered the caution inside the Pentagon orders book itself.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, declined to discuss the change and did not dispute that it occurred. His statement said the department does not publicly discuss its internal deliberative processes, among them the “access protocols” for what the administration prefers to call the Secretary of War Orders Book. Decisions of that kind, he added, move through appropriate security channels.
What the Pentagon Orders Book Carries
The document is published twice per month. It details the location and availability of American warships, units, weapons systems and other resources, and it gives top generals and admirals a place to disagree with the president and the secretary while still carrying out their orders. They do this by non-concurring, a process in which an officer sets down his reservations or the effects an order will have on other plans.
Four commanders used it. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich of European Command, Gen. Francis Donovan of Southern Command, Adm. Samuel Paparo of Pacific Command and Adm. Daryl Caudle, the chief of naval operations, each entered a non-concur warning that prolonged large-scale operations against Iran are unsustainable and risk weakening their ability to confront threats elsewhere. Gen. Kenneth S. Wilsbach and Gen. Christopher LaNeve concurred with extending some deployments, and each emphasized that doing so would carry significant risk.
Parnell responded on social media that much of the reporting was inaccurate. He offered no specifics. Non-concurs are standard, he wrote, and the secretary “sees them constantly.” He closed by assuring readers that the United States is “in great shape around the world.” He has separately called the publication of the assessments a crime and a betrayal of the force.
The Network the Press Office Was Classified to Keep
Pentagon orders book files sat on SIPRNet, which holds material marked secret. Top-secret information sits on more restricted networks where fewer people hold accounts, and a former defense official who routinely reviewed the documents said the change will “dramatically reduce the number of people” with direct access. Commanders and their staffers rely on that access for time-sensitive decisions. Rerouting aircraft and weapons between commands becomes slower. That work is now “certainly more difficult.”
That same network closed a different room three months ago. In June the Pentagon redesignated its press office a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility and barred credentialed reporters from entering it. Acting press secretary Joel Valdez explained that speechwriters had moved into the space, that they handle classified material and “require SIPRNet access,” and that journalists would therefore no longer be permitted inside. Access to the press secretary remains available by appointment.
Four Commanders and One Briefing
Grynkewich has stood on the other side of this arrangement. As a lieutenant general and director of operations for the Joint Chiefs, he took questions alongside Parnell on March 17, 2025, at what remains the only formal Pentagon briefing of the administration’s first hundred days. Parnell used the occasion to give the press corps a personal commitment that such briefings would become routine, in line with the secretary’s stated goal of running “the most transparent Department of Defense in history.”
No formal briefing has been held since May 5, a gap of nearly four months during an active war. Newswax reported this week on three conservative commentators identified in undisclosed Defense Department roles by the suffix on their email addresses. The administration has also imposed polygraphs on some personnel, subpoenaed journalists, and in one case searched the home of a Post reporter and seized her electronic devices.
Where Pentagon Orders Book Access Stands Now
The war has run into its seventh month. At the outset the president said it would take a few weeks. The Associated Press has reported that the campaign has consumed 65 percent of the American Patriot interceptor inventory, and Caudle told Hegseth that barely a quarter of the Navy’s destroyers are ready to deploy. More than two dozen senior officers have been dismissed under Hegseth. Trump has answered the year by reaffirming his support and asking Congress for a record $1.5 trillion defense budget, and Newswax reported last month on a Ford-class carrier repriced to relocate its island.
Whether the documents remain available elsewhere has not been stated. Neither has whether the reduction complicates military planning. Pentagon orders book access was the channel through which four of its most senior commanders told the secretary that the war was costing more than they could sustain, and the department will confirm only that it does not discuss access protocols for a document its spokesman says the secretary sees constantly.
Developing.
About the Author
