Vance called combatant commanders directly for unfiltered war assessments, Times reports

The latest:

US Vice President JD Vance placed direct calls to American military commanders in the Middle East, Europe and Asia through last spring and this summer, asking each for candid assessments of the Iran war before Pentagon staff merged them into a single evaluation, The New York Times reported, citing current and former officials. Vance opposed the war from the start and was assigned by President Donald Trump to help end it.

Details:

• The questions asked: According to the Times, Vance’s calls covered war aims, tactics and casualty estimates, what Iran might do in the Strait of Hormuz, how well Tehran could adapt, and how much punishment its government could absorb. He also requested detailed accounting of remaining munitions stocks.
• The munitions warning: Commanders were blunt on readiness, officials told the Times. Their biggest concern was the shrinking supply of Patriot interceptors, the backbone of US air defenses; in one theater the count dropped below 100 by late spring. They said such stocks were the lowest they had ever seen.
• Weapons drawn down: The war also drained that theater’s stocks of ATACMS tactical missiles, with a range of 190 miles, along with the Precision Strike Missile inventories meant to replace them, officials said. Commanders warned that shifting weapons to the Middle East eroded deterrence against China, Russia and North Korea.
• The public gap: Trump continued to assert, incorrectly according to the Times, that the United States had already won, that Iran’s military was destroyed and that US arms supplies faced no problems. Vance recently played down the idea that the country is at war at all.
• Polygraphs ordered: Trump privately raged at press reporting on depleted stockpiles and called the journalists who published it traitors, the Times said. Government investigators subsequently subjected dozens of senior Pentagon officers to lie-detector tests. Other officials worried the disclosures signaled weakness to Beijing and Moscow.
• Who knew: The calls were made with the knowledge of Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine, Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio, and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, officials with direct knowledge said.
• Official responses: Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Hegseth facilitated direct access for the vice president and other senior White House leaders to combatant commanders. Caine’s spokesman Joseph Holstead said there is no gap in the military advice given to the president, vice president and war secretary.
• Failed diplomacy: Vance became the public face of peace efforts, running talks that produced a June memorandum of understanding, the Times reported. Its 60-day deadline expired in August without a deal, with the two sides appearing further apart than when negotiations began.
• Timeline of doubt: Fighting began February 28 and ran well past the roughly six-week campaign Pentagon planners initially allotted. By April, Trump authorized Vance, Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff to seek a framework with Iran, one that would leave its rulers in power.
• The access he built: CIA Director John Ratcliffe gave Vance direct access to agency analysts, some of whom he knows by first name. Hegseth tasked the Office of Naval Intelligence with daily Hormuz reports listing transiting ships, flags and cargoes, intelligence and Pentagon officials said.

Background:

Pre-war planning was confined to an unusually small circle at the Pentagon and Central Command over leak fears, the Times reported. Treasury and Energy secretaries were excluded. Commanders worldwide learned little until classified orders arrived about a week before the bombing.

Between the lines:

The reported reliance on direct commander calls suggests Vance did not consider the consolidated Pentagon channel sufficient, given that Caine’s stated role is presenting unweighted options rather than recommendations. The distance between the sub-100 interceptor count commanders described privately and Trump’s public assurance that supplies face no problems is the clearest measure of that gap.

What’s next

Watch whether talks resume after the lapsed 60-day memorandum deadline, whether Patriot and ATACMS replenishment appears in Pentagon budget requests, and the outcome of the polygraph investigations into senior officers.