SerpApi.Org
The Pentagon is hiding the scale of missile shortages from the White House, insiders fear.
The US president is under pressure to hit back at Iran after the deaths of three US service members over the weekend.
But rumours are spreading across the administration that the Pentagon is concealing a shortage of interceptor missiles, which are needed to resume the war. There are also suggestions that the White House does not want to know about the scale of the shortfall.
Sharing “bad news, or realistic news, doesn’t seem to end well for anybody”, an insider told The Telegraph. Another said a “culture of silence” was causing problems for Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary.
Analysis by the Royal United Services Institute in March calculated the US and its allies had burned through more than 11,000 munitions in the first 16 days of war, and predicted they were a month away from running out of critical munitions.
Mr Trump has put the US on a war footing in recent days, suggesting the war on Tehran could resume with greater ferocity and on a greater scale than before.
Following the deaths of two US service members at an air base in Jordan, and a third in Iraq, the president declared on Monday: “Every time Iran kills an American soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!”
Mr Trump, writing on social media, said he had passed that directive to Mr Hegseth, Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and other military leaders.
F-35 and F-16 fighter jets, from bases in Britain and Germany, have reportedly been deployed to the Middle East, while aerial refuelling aircraft are said to be on the way.
The US has recently struck bridges around Bandar Abbas, one of Iran’s few major ports. Mr Trump has repeatedly threatened to hit Iran’s civilian infrastructure, but has stepped back from the brink until now.
US forces had largely concentrated their fire on Iranian targets along the coast, but after the ceasefire collapsed last week, targets have moved inland.
One source said the Pentagon was growing convinced that the way to unblock the Strait of Hormuz was by escalating the conflict and becoming more aggressive.
Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, said on Monday his country was engaged in a “full-scale war”, but questions are being raised about whether the US is prepared to resume a fully fledged conflict.
A ceasefire came into effect in early April and, although marred by tit-for-tat strikes between the US and Iran, helped conserve munitions supplies.
But the reported shortage would undermine any attempts from the US side to escalate, and pose an increasing risk to American troops.
Ryan Brobst, of the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said there were particular concerns about US stocks of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (Thaad) interceptors and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (Pac-3) missiles.
“The main effect of depleting air and missile defence stockpiles is that you assume more risk to forces being targeted,” he said. “So, for example, you would launch one interceptor at an incoming missile instead of two interceptors at an incoming missile, which would then decrease the probability that you actually intercept it.”
The US military’s stockpile of Tomahawk and Thaad missiles have plummeted since Operation Epic Fury.
Projections by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies suggest it will take until 2031 to restore Tomahawk stocks to pre-Epic Fury levels and 2029 for Thaads.
US stockpiles are a closely guarded secret within the administration, with relatively few people having access to the information. The question now being raised is whether they are being kept fully informed.
There is concern that members of the Pentagon are reluctant to deliver frank assessments to Mr Hegseth that potentially leave them exposed and in the line of fire.
Some are now questioning whether the administration’s moves to escalate the war are being made with a clear-eyed assessment of the military realities and the risk to American troops.
A source told The Telegraph that a culture of silence had taken hold as Mr Hegseth had acquired a reputation for purging senior members of the military.
“I question how honest the Pentagon is being with [Mr Hegseth] or the White House, since bad news, or realistic news, doesn’t seem to end well for anybody,” the individual said.
“Everybody is doing the best they can to keep the [department] running as efficiently as possible for the sake of our troops, in spite of the chaos factor above us – and also keep our heads in the process.”
Another source said: “This culture of silence has been a problem [for Hegseth] since he shrunk his circle to just a handful of individuals.
“When he advises the president, or when he goes to Congress, he doesn’t have full information because his top aides are trying to stay off his radar.”
Mike Duffey, who would take a key role in replenishing missile stock as the Pentagon’s under-secretary for acquisition, is a “nice guy” but “very loath to bring bad news to Pete” and “pretty much stays out of his orbit”, the source added.
A US official told the Washington Post that the US was “planning for a wider war” but that this would be limited by dwindling stockpiles of air defences and long-range munitions.
“We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the official said.
It is not the first time that the Pentagon has been accused of a lack of transparency in how it is conducting the war.
The department did not disclose three strikes against US forces last week, which injured dozens of US soldiers and damaged several helicopters, according to The New York Times.
The Pentagon insisted the military had not withheld or misrepresented US casualties in the war. “Claims of concealment are fabrications meant to further distress the American people in the wake of three service members killed in action,” said Sean Parnell, its chief spokesman.
Last Tuesday, Democrats blocked the $1.15tn (£860bn) defence bill known as the National Defence Authorisation Act, complaining that Congress had been left in the dark by the Trump administration.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokesman, insisted the military had enough stockpiles of munitions.
“The United States military has more than enough munitions, ammo, and stockpiles to serve all of President Trump’s strategic goals and beyond, and Operation Epic Fury has exposed what happens when you mess with the United States,” she said.
“Even still, the president has urged our defence contractors to constantly produce more made in America weapons, which are the best in the world. Democrats destroyed our military, but President Trump rebuilt it.”
