WASHINGTON: Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth portrayed the US military Tuesday as too fat, too focused on leftist “woke” ideas, and in need of a major shake-up with an emphasis on being tough “war fighters.”

The speech, to an auditorium of hundreds of generals and admirals hastily called to Virginia from around the world, touted a plan for ending what the former Fox News host claimed had been “decades of decay.”

Striding across a stage in front of a giant American flag that mirrored his pocket square, Hegseth took aim at “stupid rules of engagement” on the battlefield and “fat troops” at home, calling for the military to look back to the standards of 1990 for inspiration.

He said he wanted a military focused on lethality, not racial or gender diversity, with an end to what he said were troops “walking on eggshells” over fear of complaints about behavior.

“This speech is about fixing decades of decay, some of it obvious, some of it hidden,” Hegseth told the hundreds of senior officers assembled for the highly unusual get-together.

“Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading, and we lost our way. We became the ´Woke Department.´ But not anymore,” he said.

Hegseth outlined various changes he wants to make as part of his efforts to reshape the military, recapping some previous announcements.

He called for the strict application of grooming standards — which includes a one-year cap on shaving waivers that are disproportionately used by Black troops — as well as for having the current highest male fitness standard apply to all combat forces.

“Standards must be uniform, gender-neutral and high — if not, they´re not standards. They´re just suggestions, suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed,” Hegseth said.

He criticised out-of-shape troops, saying: “It´s tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it´s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of Pentagon.”

´Hunt and kill´

Hegseth also said he would institute what he called the “no more walking on eggshells policy,” which entails “no more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complainants, no more smearing reputations.”

He specifically criticised the Pentagon inspector general — which launched an investigation into his use of the civilian messaging app Signal for classified information this year — saying the office has been “weaponised” and will be overhauled.

Hegseth said that strict rules for when force can be used — measures that are aimed at preventing civilians from being killed — are a thing of the past.

“We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralise, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality, and authority for war fighters,” he said.

That approach has recently been demonstrated in the Caribbean, where the US military has killed more than a dozen people in strikes on alleged drug smugglers traveling in boats.

Trump´s administration has yet to publicly release evidence to back its claims that those targeted were smugglers or that they posed an immediate danger to the United States.

Hegseth warned that anyone not agreeing should quit.

“If the words I´m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” he told the officers.

Trump´s administration has already purged a number of top officers this year, including chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff general Charles “CQ” Brown, who was fired without explanation in February, as well as the heads of the Navy and Coast Guard.

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon recommitted itself in a statement on Tuesday to scaling back its military mission in Iraq, a process that a US official said will see Baghdad command efforts to combat remnants of Daesh inside its own country.

Under the plan, the US and its coalition allies would instead focus on combating Daesh remnants in Syria and shift most of their personnel to Iraq’s Kurdistan region to carry out that mission, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The US had approximately 2,500 troops in Iraq at the start of 2025 and more than 900 in neighbouring Syria as part of the coalition formed in 2014 to combat Daesh as it rampaged through the two countries.

Once the transitions are completed, the total number of US forces in Iraq will number fewer than 2,000, and the majority of them will be in Erbil, the official said. A final number has yet to be determined, the official added, without offering a timeline.

US troops remaining in Baghdad will focus on normal bilateral security co-operation issues, not the counter-ISIS fight.

“ISIS is no longer posing a sustained threat to the government of Iraq or to the US homeland from Iraqi territory. This is a major achievement that enables us to transition more responsibly to Iraq leading efforts for security in their own country,” a senior defence official said.

The agreement is a boost for the government in Baghdad, which has long worried that US troops can be a magnet for instability, frequently targeted by Iran-aligned groups.

The US agreed last year with Iraq to depart the Ain al-Asad airbase in western Anbar province and hand it over to Iraq. The US official said that transition was still “in progress,” and declined to offer further information.

Although the Trump administration has outlined plans for a drawdown in Syria as well, the official said that was conditions-based and “we remain in kind of a status quo situation” at the moment.

The US is concerned about the persistent presence of Daesh fighters in Syria, and the risk that thousands being held in prisons could be freed.

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda leader, led rebel forces that overthrew Bashar al-Assad’s government last year. US President Donald Trump met him in Riyadh in May.

Middle East leaders and their Western allies have been warning that Daesh could exploit the political instability in Syria to stage a comeback there.

A 6.9-magnitude quake struck off the coast of the central Philippines on Tuesday evening, damaging buildings and roads and knocking out power in parts of the region, as rescuers searched for possible casualties.

Municipal workers checked a collapsed public building and a gym, both in the north of the island of Cebu, hours after the quake struck at sea off its northern tip at 9:59 pm (1359 GMT), provincial rescue official Wilson Ramos said.

“There could be people trapped beneath collapsed buildings,” he told AFP, citing rescue efforts underway in the town of San Remigio and Bogo, a city near the epicentre with 90,000 residents. He said he did not know how many people are missing.

Recovery efforts were being hampered by the dark as well as aftershocks, he added. The US Geological Service has recorded four quakes of magnitude 5.0 or higher in the area following the first tremor.

The local seismology office warned of a possible “minor sea-level disturbance” and urged residents of the central islands of Leyte, Cebu and Biliran to “stay away from the beach and not to go to the coast”.

Cebu firefighter Joey Leeguid told AFP from San Fernando town: “We felt the shake here in our station, it was so strong. We saw our locker moving from left to right, we felt slightly dizzy for a while, but we are all fine now.”

Martham Pacilan, a 25-year-old resident of the resort town of Bantayan, also near the epicentre, said he was at the town square near a church, which was damaged by the quake.

“I heard a loud booming noise from the direction of the church, then I saw rocks falling from the structure. Luckily, no one got hurt,” he told AFP.

“I was in shock and in panic at the same time but my body couldn’t move, I was just there waiting for the shake to stop.”

Power outage

Agnes Merza, a carer based in Bantayan, said her kitchen tiles had cracked.

“It felt as though we would all fall down. It’s the first time I have experienced it. The neighbours all ran out of their homes. My two teenage assistants hid under a table because that’s what they were taught in the boy scouts,” the 65-year-old told AFP.

The Cebu provincial government reported a commercial building and a school in Bantayan had collapsed, while a number of village roads had also sustained damage.

The quake caused power lines to trip, leading to outages across Cebu and nearby central islands, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines said in an advisory, adding it was still assessing the extent of the damage.

In a live video message on her official Facebook account, Cebu provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro urged residents to “stay calm and move to open areas; keep away from walls or structures that may collapse and stay alert for aftershocks.”

She said the provincial government was assessing the situation and reaching out to municipal officials.

The USGS had reported a magnitude reading of 7.0, before revising it down, while the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there was no tsunami threat from the earthquake.

Quakes are a near-daily occurrence in the Philippines, which is situated on the Pacific “Ring of Fire”, an arc of intense seismic activity stretching from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.

Most are too weak to be felt by humans, but strong and destructive ones come at random, with no technology available to predict when and where they might strike.