Vice President JD Vance has been questioning the assessments coming out of the Department of War about the success of the US military in Iran.
According to two senior White House officials speaking with The Atlantic, Vance has expressed skepticism about the Pentagon’s estimates about the depletion of US munitions during the war against Iran. A report released last week by the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that the Pentagon used about half of its stockpiles of advanced interceptors and standoff munitions during the first five weeks of the war.
Vance is concerned that the heavy usage of weapons against Iran is harming America’s ability to fight wars in Europe and East Asia. He has also raised questions about how much damage the US and Israel have done to Iran.
Publicly, President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have claimed that Iran’s navy and air force have been eliminated, while the missile program is significantly degraded. US intelligence estimates that Iran still has 70% of its prewar missile stockpile. The Atlantic spoke with officials who said that Tehran has about two-thirds of its air force available and most of its small, fast-attack boats, which make up the backbone of the Iranian navy.
While Vance disagrees with the assessments put forward by Hegseth, the Vice President has not challenged the Pentagon directly. A White House official told us that Vance “asks a lot of probing questions about our strategic planning, as do all of the members of the president’s national-security team.”
While Vance was reported to be skeptical of going to war with Iran, he has publicly embraced the conflict. Earlier this month, he suggested it was necessary to prevent a suicide bomber from setting off a nuclear weapon in an American shopping center.
