The Trump team’s muddled messaging on a munitions shortfall Inbox...
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Just days before the Iran war began, the United States’ top military official, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, expressed misgivings.
One of Caine’s biggest concerns? How war with Iran could further deplete munitions stockpiles that had already been reduced by helping Ukraine and Israel in their wars in recent years, The Washington Post and CNN reported.
That warning is looking increasingly prescient and pivotal, as the Trump administration struggles to wind down a war that has lasted much longer than it previewed.
But the administration is struggling to reconcile exactly where things stand on the all-important issue of munitions.
On the one hand, it has claimed the US has more than enough munitions — even that Trump has vastly increased the munitions and that the number is “unlimited.” On the other, it has blamed the Biden administration for depleting the stockpiles and asked for a ton of money to help replenish them, while warning about shortfalls if Congress fails to provide it.
“We’re in very good shape,” Trump said Monday. “But for some of the more sophisticated stuff, we’d certainly like to have more. (Former President Joe) Biden gave a lot of it away.”
The president claimed his predecessor had given away “numbers that nobody’s ever seen before.”
US Ambassador to the United Nations Michael Waltz’s interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday was also a case in point for the administration’s confusing messaging.
When asked about reporting from CNN and others that Caine had again raised concerns about the stockpile in recent days — shortly before the US paused its strikes on Iran on Friday — Waltz, like Trump, blamed the Biden administration.
“(Defense) Secretary (Pete) Hegseth inherited a depleted situation from not only Ukraine, but also the ongoing fight with the Houthis under the Biden administration, and a depleted military under the Biden administration,” Waltz said.
But when pressed by NBC’s Kristen Welker on whether he was admitting the stockpiles were indeed depleted, Waltz claimed he wasn’t.
“No, I want to be crystal clear: The US military — and I’ve verified this every which way — has everything that it needs to conduct this campaign as effectively as it needs to be,” he said.
Waltz’s comment walks a fine line.
As CNN has reported, the risk with the munitions stockpile isn’t so much that the United States won’t have enough to finish prosecuting the Iran war; it’s in how much the war might deplete the stockpile for future wars the United States might feel compelled to get involved in.
That includes exigencies like if China were to invade Taiwan. A depleted US stockpile could even embolden China to do something it might not otherwise attempt.
The administration’s confusing comments about munitions date to the earliest days of the conflict with Iran.
After multiple reports about such concerns around the time the war started, the administration dismissed the issue out of hand.
“We have massive amounts of ammunition,” Trump said on March 4.
Hegseth added March 5 that there was “no shortage of munitions” and that “our munitions are full up.”
“We have tremendous amounts of ammunition,” Trump said March 26, adding that “we’re packed.”
But even in his March 4 comments, the president also seemed to suggest — as he did Monday — that certain types of munitions could be an issue.
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