DANGEROUS LEVELS

Trump’s Staggering Missile Crisis Revealed

The president’s war has the Pentagon running out of money, ideas, and now even the weapons he would need to defend the U.S. from attack.

Donald Trump’s war with Iran is becoming even more disastrous by the day as his own officials warn the Pentagon has used up “virtually all” of its long-range missiles.

The U.S. military has spent the overwhelming majority of those stockpiles carrying out strikes against the Islamist regime since the president, 80, launched that conflict on Feb. 28, according to sources familiar with Defense Department data, who spoke anonymously to Reuters on Tuesday.

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Those officials are now panicking that the depleted supply of “highly accurate long-range missiles” could affect “the military’s readiness for future conflicts,” leaving the U.S. vulnerable to attack by even more capable adversaries like Russia and China, the outlet writes.

Trump, 80, is fast running out of time to save any semblance of face over the war he promised would last a “few weeks” and which has now entered its sixth month. He signed a memorandum of understanding for a temporary ceasefire in June. It lasted just 21 days before talks for a lasting peace fell through. Washington and Tehran have engaged in an escalating series of tit-for-tat strikes in the weeks since.

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The Pentagon has also let slip that it is running out of ideas for how to sustain the conflict until the president’s diplomats can get their act together. “We are looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran,” a top defense official pleaded in an email blast to military analysts last week. CNN, which first reported the message, said the “crowdsourcing-style” request shows how dire the situation has now become.

The Defense Department has further signaled that it is running out of money amid the soaring costs imposed by Trump’s war. Officials told The Washington Post in July that the Pentagon has been forced to scale down training and maintenance to save cash as the Trump administration begs Congress for $67 billion to plug the hole blown in its budget by the president’s war.

Trump, in a statement to Reuters, said the U.S. has “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need,” adding that “our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, ​in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels.”

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly added that “the United States Military has more than enough munitions, ammo, and stockpiles to serve all of President Trump’s strategic goals and beyond,” and claimed, “Democrats destroyed our military, but President Trump rebuilt it.”

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Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told Reuters that “America’s military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the president’s choosing.” He added that “we have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses ​a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the Pentagon for further comment.

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