The Washington Post published a story last night claiming that a frustrated President Trump accused self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth of not being truthful about the status of munitions stockpiles, during a cabinet meeting at Camp David on July 31.
According to the Post’s sources, Hegseth turned around and blamed Stephen Feinberg, Hegseth’s deputy, for not fixing the problem and for not keeping Trump apprised of the issue.
According to the Post, “The exchange underscored Trump’s increasing frustration with his defense secretary, who was one of the biggest early advocates for taking military action against Iran, convincing Trump it would be a quick and relatively easy win, according to multiple officials.”
Both the White House and the Pentagon responded to the Post story in official statements by calling it “fiction” and “fake news.”
Meanwhile, stories about munitions shortages continue to proliferate. CNN reported on Wednesday, citing “multiple sources familiar with the matter,” that the US military has exhausted nearly 80% of its interceptors for a key missile defense system as senior US military commanders are warning that the Pentagon’s munitions stockpile is “dangerously low.”
The inventory of THAAD missiles has reportedly been reduced by four-fifths while the stockpile of Patriot missiles is said to be down by one-half, all since the Feb. 28 start of the war.
Replenishment rates are low for key missiles, analysts have told CNN—according to current fiscal year delivery schedules, the Pentagon is receiving roughly 15 new Tomahawks and 20 new Patriot missiles per month. The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated it would take three or more years to rebuild THAAD inventories to pre-Iran war levels.
At about the same time that the CNN story came out, Reuters posted an article claiming that the US Army had exhausted nearly its entire inventory of ground launched missiles. The Army had been firing not only ATACMS, but also its replacement, the Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, from HIMARS launchers into Iraq from Kuwait.
The IRGC issued several statements during July saying they had been targeting those HIMARS launchers but any losses they might have inflicted are not accounted for in the Reuters report. Reuters’ sources declined to say how many of each type of missile the Army had left.
