The department has answered each figure with an adjective. It has not taken a question at a podium since May 5.
ARLINGTON, Va.—Responding to a run of published Pentagon readiness figures with written statements rather than briefings, the Defense Department has called the reporting baseless, the shortages false, and its own arsenal deep and ready.
Axios reported on September 2 that the Navy’s top admiral had told Secretary of War Pete Hegseth barely one-quarter of the service’s destroyers are ready to deploy, and that the only carrier dedicated to the Pacific has been moved to the Middle East. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell called the premise of a department in disarray “completely baseless and an insult to every dedicated professional” in the building. He said so in writing.
What the Pentagon Readiness Numbers Show
The interceptor count reached the public through a think tank. Six months of war with Iran have consumed 65 percent of the American Patriot inventory, roughly 1,500 of the 2,330 interceptors the country held going in, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, whose figures the Associated Press reported on August 27. A defense official in Europe and a NATO official, both speaking on condition of anonymity, told the AP that the shortage on the continent had moved past critical, leaving allied capitals thin against Russian ballistic missiles.
Parnell answered that reporting as well. He said the United States maintains a “deep, ready arsenal” across multiple combatant commands, and that claims of shortage are false. Roughly 600 Patriot interceptors will come off American production lines this year. Replacing the 1,500 the war has spent therefore takes two and a half years, and the department’s goal of 2,000 a year is set for 2030.
Two Dozen Officers and Forty-Five Promotions
The leadership figures came out through three newspapers. More than two dozen senior officers have been dismissed under Hegseth, by the Washington Post’s count, and he has remade nearly the whole Joint Chiefs; of the chiefs he inherited, only the Marine Corps and Space Force commandants remain. The New York Times reported that he has personally removed at least 45 officers from promotion lists this year. NBC News reported further blocks in recent weeks. More than a dozen of those officers are Black, Hispanic or female, across the services.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned on August 31 after months of disagreement with Hegseth over the service’s leadership and modernization, having been sent by the president to handle sensitive diplomacy in Ukraine and having been discussed at one point as a successor to Hegseth himself. He is Vice President Vance’s Yale Law classmate. His exit followed the firing of General Randy George as Army chief of staff. Both seats are empty. The Army is fighting the seventh month of this war without a Senate-confirmed civilian secretary or a confirmed uniformed chief.
The Objections Are Standard and Printing Them Is a Crime
Four commanders put their objections in writing. The officers responsible for Europe, the Pacific and Latin America, joined by the Navy’s top officer, formally objected to extending forces for the Iran war, telling Hegseth that the deployments were eroding what they could do about threats anywhere else. The Post obtained those assessments from the secretary’s orders book and published them.
Parnell addressed both halves of that. Formal dissents from American generals, he said, are standard. Publishing the assessments, he said, was a crime and a betrayal of the force. The assessments describe the readiness of the force.
Three senior employees of Stars and Stripes are suing the department, saying they were fired in retaliation for reporting on conditions aboard a carrier sent to the Iran war. The war has also moved crude. CNBC reported on September 9 that the president’s nine largest oil and gas holdings gained between $1.5 million and $4.4 million between February 27, the day before the fighting began, and August 31.
Where the Pentagon Readiness Figures Leave the Budget
Congress has been asked for a defense budget of $1.5 trillion, a record. Newswax reported this month on a joint Treasury and Defense working group asked to identify a military option for long-term yields. That group returned a blank page where its target set was meant to go.
Parnell pledged early in his tenure to make briefings routine, and described the department at the time as the most transparent in its history. Every Pentagon readiness figure in this account reached the public through an anonymous official, a think tank, a leaked orders book or a lawsuit. Every denial of those figures was issued in writing, one outlet at a time.
Developing.
About the Author
