Six Protesters Forcibly Removed From Army Conference After Calling Hegseth a 'War Criminal'

Six anti-war demonstrators took turns standing up inside a packed ballroom at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center on Wednesday, each waiting until the previous protester had been removed before launching the next round. The target was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was presenting the Pentagon's vision for autonomous warfare at the U.S. Army's 2026 Annual Meeting and Exposition. The chants — "war criminal," "Nazi," "coward" — were consistent. So was the response: security personnel and law enforcement officers escorted or physically removed each demonstrator in turn, and in at least one instance carried a screaming woman out of the room by her arms and legs.

A Coordinated Disruption, Not a Spontaneous Outburst

The sequence was deliberate. According to Military Times, four protesters disrupted the panel within the first five minutes, with two more following before the 20-minute mark. Each person waited for the preceding removal to be completed before standing up — effectively stretching the confrontation across the opening portion of the roughly hour-long session. Hegseth recognized the strategy almost immediately. "Appears we have a bit of a tactic," he told the room — a remark that drew applause from an audience of defense industry executives and senior Army officials.

The AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition is the largest and most prominent gathering in the U.S. Army calendar, drawing top military leadership, defense contractors, and senior government officials. Hegseth appeared on the final day of the three-day conference alongside Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle, Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Derrick Anderson, with former Navy officer Owen West moderating.

What the Protesters Shouted

"You're spending more on killing children in Gaza, while children in America are starving," one demonstrator shouted before removal. Another cried out, "You're killing my family," and a third told Hegseth that "the world f—— hates you." The final protester, per Military Times, escalated the accusations to include Nazi references, war crimes, and a reference to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. All six protests returned, with varying language, to U.S. military operations in Iran and the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

Sections of the audience pushed back with chants of "USA, USA, USA" before the room settled. Hegseth did not engage the substance of the protesters' arguments directly.

The Moment That Defined the Scene

The most striking image of the morning came from a woman who could not be walked out of the room voluntarily. Multiple security officers were required to physically lift her from her seat — holding her arms and legs — and carry her out of the ballroom while she continued shouting. A photograph taken by Getty Images photographer Kevin Dietsch captured the moment and spread across social media platforms within minutes.

Hegseth's Response: Sarcasm, Then Irritation

After the first demonstrator was removed, Hegseth deflected with a quip — "She thinks highly of me" — drawing brief laughter from the audience. As the interruptions accumulated, however, his composure visibly deteriorated. By the end of the sequence, he had abandoned the humor and shifted to direct assertion, insisting that Iran would never, under any circumstances, acquire a nuclear weapon, and dismissing the protesters' message as political noise rather than substantive challenge.

Project Agincourt and the Autonomous Warfare Command

The panel's focus — before and after the disruptions — was Project Agincourt, the organizational pathway toward the Pentagon's planned Autonomous Warfare Command, or AutoWarCom. Hegseth announced AutoWarCom on September 30, 2026, during his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico, describing the initiative as part of "the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history." The AUSA conference was the first major public forum where he expanded on that vision before the broader defense industry community.

The command is envisioned as a four-star structure with service-like authorities — meaning budgets and procurement powers comparable to a full military branch — built specifically to scale drone, robotic, and artificial intelligence capabilities across the joint force. Project Agincourt, named after the 1415 battle in which a numerically inferior English army used the longbow to defeat a larger French force, serves as the preparatory phase before AutoWarCom achieves full operational status.

The Dollar Figure That Sharpens the Argument

The Pentagon's FY2027 budget requests $54.6 billion for the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group — a roughly 24,000 percent increase over the $225 million the organization received in the prior fiscal year. That single line item accounts for nearly 15 percent of the administration's $350 billion defense reconciliation package and exceeds the entire Marine Corps budget request for the same cycle. The figure gives the protesters' argument about resource allocation its most concrete financial edge.

Not the First Confrontation — and Unlikely to Be the Last

Wednesday's protest was not the first time Hegseth has faced this specific type of direct confrontation. In late April, a demonstrator interrupted his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, calling him a "war criminal" and demanding his arrest before Capitol Police intervened. Two days earlier, on April 25, two protesters disrupted the White House Correspondents' Dinner red carpet with chants demanding Hegseth's arrest for alleged war crimes.

The cumulative pattern points to a sustained, coordinated opposition effort directed specifically at Hegseth — distinct from the broader anti-war movement — as the domestic political cost of the Iran conflict continues to rise. In June 2026, Congress passed a historic concurrent War Powers Resolution directing the administration to end hostilities with Iran — the first binding measure of its kind ever enacted under the 1973 law — which the White House rejected on constitutional grounds. With approximately $200 billion in Iran war funding deliberately deferred to a December congressional vote, and reports of a potential third carrier strike group arriving in the region by late October, the legislative and military pressures surrounding Hegseth's portfolio are far from settled. For the six demonstrators carried or escorted out of the AUSA convention, the message was straightforward: the political consequences of the Iran war have followed the Defense Secretary into the rooms where its next chapter is being planned.

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