Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed war plans in an encrypted group chat that included a journalist two hours before U.S. troops launched attacks against the Houthi militia in Yemen, the White House said on Monday, confirming an account in the magazine The Atlantic.

周一，白宫证实了《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic)杂志的报道——在美军对也门胡塞武装发动袭击两小时前，美国国防部长皮特·海格塞斯在一个加密聊天群组中透露了战争计划，群组中包括一名记者。

The editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote in an article published on Monday that he was mistakenly added to the text chat on the commercial messaging app Signal by Michael Waltz, the national security adviser.

《大西洋月刊》主编杰弗里·戈德堡在周一发表的文章中写道，他被国家安全顾问迈克尔·瓦尔兹误添加到了民用通讯应用Signal的聊天群组中。

It was an extraordinary breach of American national security intelligence. Not only was the journalist inadvertently included in the group, but the conversation also took place outside of the secure government channels that would normally be used for classified and highly sensitive war planning.

这是一起重大的美国国家安全情报泄露事件。不仅这位记者无意中被加入了该群聊，而且对话发生在机密和高度敏感战争计划通常使用的加密政府渠道之外。

Mr. Goldberg said he was able to follow the conversation among senior members of President Trump’s national security team in the two days leading up to the strikes in Yemen. The group also included Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Mr. Goldberg wrote.

戈德堡称他因而得以全程关注特朗普总统的国家安全团队高级成员在也门空袭两天前的对话。该聊天群组成员还包括副总统万斯和国务卿鲁比奥，戈德堡写道。

At 11:44 a.m. on March 15, Mr. Hegseth posted the “operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing,” Mr. Goldberg wrote. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East.”

3月15日上午11点44分，海格塞斯发布了“即将对也门发动袭击的行动细节，包括有关目标、美国将部署的武器和攻击序列的信息，”戈德堡写道。“如果被美国的对手读到，其中包含的信息可能会被用来伤害美国的军事和情报人员，尤其是在更广泛的中东地区。”

In an interview, Mr. Goldberg said that “up until the Hegseth text on Saturday, it was mainly procedural and policy texting. Then it became war plans, and to be honest, that sent a chill down my spine.”

在采访中，戈德堡说，“在周六海格塞斯发布这条消息之前，群聊内容主要是程序和政策方面的消息。然后就变成了战争计划，说实话，这让我脊背发冷。”

Mr. Goldberg did not publish the details of the war plans in his article.

戈德堡没有在他的文章中公布作战计划的细节。

Mr. Hegseth, Mr. Goldberg wrote, said that “the first detonations in Yemen would be felt two hours hence, at 1:45 p.m. Eastern time. So I waited in my car in a supermarket parking lot.”

戈德堡在文章中写道，海格塞斯发消息称，“两小时后，也就是东部时间下午1:45，也门会发生第一次爆炸。所以我在一个超市停车场里，坐车上等着。”

“If this Signal chat was real, I reasoned, Houthi targets would soon be bombed,” he added.

“我当时认为，如果这个Signal群聊内容是真的，胡塞的目标很快会被轰炸，”戈德堡写道。

At around 1:55, initial airstrikes hit buildings in neighborhoods in and around Sana, Yemen’s capital, that were known Houthi leadership strongholds, according to Pentagon officials and residents. The strikes continued throughout that Saturday and into the next few days.

据五角大楼官员和当地居民表示，大约在1点55分，最初的空袭击中了也门首都萨那及其周边地区的建筑物，那里是已知的胡塞武装领导人的据点。空袭在整个周六乃至接下来数日内一直在进行。

Mr. Hegseth, Mr. Goldberg wrote, declared to the group — which included the journalist — that steps had been taken to keep the information secret.

戈德堡写道，海格塞斯向聊天群组宣布，已采取措施对这些信息保密，而记者就在这个群组之中。

“We are currently clean on OPSEC,” Mr. Hegseth wrote, using the military acronym for operational security.

海格塞斯写道，“我们目前在OPSEC方面没有问题。”OPSEC是作战安全的军事缩写用语。

Several Defense Department officials expressed shock that Mr. Hegseth had put American war plans into a commercial chat group. They said that having this type of conversation in a Signal chat group itself could be a violation of the Espionage Act, a law covering the handling of sensitive information.

几名国防部官员对海格塞斯把美国的作战计划放到一个民用聊天群里表示震惊。他们说，在Signal聊天群中进行这种类型的对话本身可能违反了《反间谍法》，该法涉及敏感信息的处理。

Revealing operational war plans before planned strikes could also put American troops directly into harm’s way, the officials said. And former F.B.I. officials who worked on leak cases described this as a devastating breach of national security. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive national security matter.

官员们表示，在打击行动开始之前披露作战计划还可能使美国军队直接处于危险之中。曾参与泄密案件的前联邦调查局官员称，这是对国家安全的严重破坏。由于讨论敏感的国家安全问题，他们要求匿名。

Former national security officials said that if personal cellphones were used in the group chat, the behavior would be even more egregious because of ongoing Chinese hacking efforts.

前国家安全官员表示，如果使用个人手机进行群聊，这种行为将更加恶劣，因为中国在持续进行黑客攻击。

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said that the “story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen.”

参议院军事委员会资深民主党人、罗德岛州参议员杰克·里德说，该报道“是我见过的行动安全和常识方面最严重的失误之一”。

“Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion and precision, using approved secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line,” he added.

他还说：“军事行动需要以最大限度的谨慎和精确来处理，使用经批准的安全通信线路，因为这关系到美国人的生命安全。”

Republican senators faced a barrage of questions. Many said they were concerned, but most were withholding judgment until they could receive a full briefing.

共和党参议员们收到了一连串的提问。许多人表示很担心，但大多数人在听取完整简报之前都不愿做出判断。

“It appears that were mistakes were made, no question,” said Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “We’ll try to get to ground truth and take appropriate action.”

“毫无疑问，我们似乎犯了错误，”密西西比州共和党参议员、军事委员会主席罗杰·威克说。“我们将努力弄清真相，并采取适当行动。”

Mr. Trump, speaking to reporters at the White House, said that he had no knowledge of the article in The Atlantic. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said, adding, “You’re telling me about it for the first time.”

特朗普在白宫对记者说，他不知道《大西洋月刊》的那篇文章。“我什么都不知道，”他说，“你是第一个告诉我的。”

The Pentagon referred questions about the article to the National Security Council. Mr. Hegseth was traveling to Hawaii on Monday, his first stop on a weeklong trip to Asia. He spoke to reporters traveling with him after landing in Hawaii, called Mr. Goldberg a “so-called journalist” and, when pressed, said that “nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that.”

五角大楼建议由国家安全委员会回答有关该报道的问题。海格塞斯周一前往夏威夷，这是他为期一周的亚洲之行的第一站。在抵达夏威夷后，他接受了随行记者的采访，称戈德堡是“所谓的记者”，在被追问时，他说，“没人用聊天软件发作战计划，我想说的就这么多。”

The White House also appeared to contradict Mr. Hegseth. “At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” Brian Hughes, the National Security Council spokesman, said in an emailed statement. He called the thread “a demonstration of the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials.”

白宫的说法似乎与海格塞斯相悖。国家安全委员会发言人布莱恩·休斯在电子邮件声明中说，“目前，被报道的群聊消息似乎是真实的，我们正在调查一个无意中被添加到该群中的号码是如何出现的。”他称那些消息“体现了高层官员之间深入而细致的政策协调”。

The State Department spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, said at a press briefing that she would not comment on Mr. Rubio’s “deliberative conversations,” and directed further questions to the White House.

国务院发言人塔米·布鲁斯在新闻发布会上表示，她不会对鲁比奥的“慎重谈话”发表评论，并表示进一步的问题应由白宫来回答。

The group chat also included a dissent from Mr. Vance, who called the timing of the Yemen operation a “mistake.” He and Mr. Hegseth both argued in the chat that European countries benefited from the U.S. Navy’s efforts to protect shipping lanes from Houthi attacks.

在群聊中，万斯表达了不同意见，他称也门行动的时机是个“错误”。他和海格塞斯在群聊中都声称，欧洲国家从美国海军保护航道不受胡塞武装袭击的工作中受益。

“I am not sure the president is aware how inconsistent this is with his message on Europe right now,” Mr. Vance wrote before the operation. He said he was “willing to support the consensus of the team and keep these concerns to myself.”

万斯在行动前写道，“我不确定总统是否意识到，这与他目前对待欧洲的态度有多么不一致。”他表示，他“愿意支持团队的共识，并保留我的意见”。

But he added that “I just hate bailing Europe out again.”

但他还写道，“我只是受不了又要去救欧洲。”

Mr. Hegseth replied: “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.” But, he said, “I think we should go.”

海格塞斯回答说：“我完全同意你对欧洲人搭便车的厌恶。很可悲。”但是，他写道，“我认为我们应该干这件事。”

During his first term, Mr. Trump repeatedly said Hillary Clinton should have been imprisoned for using a private email server to communicate with her staff and others while she was secretary of state. Mr. Waltz, for his part, posted on social media in June 2023: “Biden’s sitting National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan sent Top Secret messages to Hillary Clinton’s private account. And what did DOJ do about it? Not a damn thing.”

特朗普在第一任期内曾多次表示，希拉里·克林顿应该因为在担任国务卿期间使用私人电子邮件服务器与工作人员和其他人通信而入狱。瓦尔兹则于2023年6月在社交媒体上发帖称：“拜登的现任国家安全顾问杰克·沙利文向希拉里·克林顿的私人账户发送了绝密信息。司法部对此做了什么？什么都没做。”

In his many television appearances before he became defense secretary, Mr. Hegseth also excoriated Mrs. Clinton for using a private email server. Across social media on Monday, those criticisms were reappearing. “Hey @petehegseth_DOD, this you?” read one post, accompanying a video of Mr. Hegseth on Fox Business saying that Mrs. Clinton “betrayed her country” for “convenience.”

在出任国防部长之前，海格塞斯曾多次在电视上露面，他也曾严厉指责克林顿使用私人电子邮件服务器。周一，这些批评在社交媒体上再次出现。“嘿 @petehegseth_DOD，这个是你吗？”一条帖子写道，并附上了一段海格塞斯在福克斯商业频道上说克林顿为了“图方便”而“背叛自己国家”的视频。

Mrs. Clinton, for her part, reposted the Atlantic story on social media with one comment: “You have got to be kidding me.”

希拉里·克林顿在社交媒体上转发了《大西洋月刊》的报道，并评论道：“这可太扯了。”