Denials that the Pentagon is in disarray under President Donald Trump are likely premature, the Guardian reports, because officials inside the department are saying something very different in private.

While the Pentagon insists that any suggestion the defense department is in disarray under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is "completely baseless," the Guardian notes that alarm over Hegseth's conduct in the role — and its implications — has not been expressed solely by his political opponents.

"The secretary of defense is a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States and the world," said Randy Manner, a retired major general in the US National Guard and member of National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A), a group of former military leaders. "He has done more harm to the national security of the United States than any secretary of defense since the country was created."

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is leaving the U.S. Senate after relentless clashes with Trump — including over foreign policy and defense nominees — urged the president this week to fire his defense secretary outright. That a Republican senator from a state Trump carried is publicly calling for a cabinet dismissal underscores that the criticism extends well beyond Democratic ranks.

"I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country," Tillis wrote on social media. "He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and wellbeing of our fighting force."

Last week, sources directly inside the White House claimed Trump was suffering the consequences of surrounding himself with yes-men and "good news" maidens while Iran beat the president to pieces, according to the Daily Mail. Furious to finally see the truth of his failure, Trump turned on his loyalists and sidelined at least one of them, according to the sources.

"One is a sledge-hammer and the other is a scalpel," an anonymous source told the Daily Mail, comparing Hegseth to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — who was allegedly climbing over Hegseth's back to direct Iran war policy. The comparison is notable in itself: it suggests elements of the administration viewed Iran policy as effectively being shaped outside the defense department's own chain of command.

Retired Major General Paul Eaton told the Guardian that even Donald Rumsfeld's failings paled in comparison to those of Trump and his "secretary of war." Rumsfeld, who served as defense secretary under Presidents Ford and George W. Bush, drew heavy criticism over the Iraq war and was ultimately replaced in 2006 amid calls from retired generals for his resignation — a historical echo of the current wave of criticism from former military leaders.

"… [T]his is infinitely worse because we had a lot of other very smart people to corral the bad ideas coming out of Rumsfeld. [This time] we've had the whole removal of seasoned men and women who have learned things the hard way most of the time in combat," Eaton said.

Michael O'Hanlon, a defense and strategy expert at the Brookings Institution, similarly told the Guardian that Trump will not easily survive the peril his department leaders have put him in with their incompetence.

Hegseth, O'Hanlon said, was "not going to wind up leaving a major mark. He's going to wind up being known as the guy who fought Trump's culture wars for him – and maybe failed to help Trump stay out of trouble in the Iran war, depending on how bad that gets." How the president responds to such criticism from within his own party and from retired military leadership will be a key marker of whether Hegseth retains his post.