Three Washington Outlets Describe a War Running Short of Interceptors

The Washington Post reports that President Donald Trump confronted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at Camp David last week over shortages of munitions, having understood the problem to have been solved, and that Hegseth put the blame on his deputy, Stephen Feinberg. CNN puts numbers to the shortage: THAAD anti-ballistic interceptors roughly 80 percent depleted, Patriot interceptors roughly 50 percent. NBC News describes a president frustrated with his advisers, and quotes an American official saying the administration has settled on no clear goal.

The denials are unusually flat. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called the depletion figures fictional and said Hegseth neither misled the president nor blamed Feinberg. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the account of the Camp David meeting 100 percent fake news that literally never happened. Trump posted on Truth Social that the United States holds massive amounts of munitions.

Interceptor stocks are the part worth watching whichever version is true. They are the resource that sets how long an air campaign can be sustained against an adversary that answers with ballistic missiles, and they are slow to replace. A shortage does not stop a war. It shortens the list of things a president can credibly threaten.

The war began in late February and the heaviest fighting was about a month ago. Trump threatened what he called the largest strikes and then stepped back, saying Iran had called him asking to negotiate rather than face the biggest attack since the Second World War. Talks now centre on access through the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran says it is speaking to Oman and not to Washington directly, and asked about the negotiations Trump said he hears they are doing very well.