The Washington Post reports:

President Donald Trump’s frustration over the Iran war boiled over at Camp David last week, where he demanded answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on why he had apparently been misled on extreme munitions shortages that now threaten to limit military options with Iran, two people familiar with the exchange told The Washington Post.

The encounter took place on the sidelines of his Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday where Trump vented at Hegseth that he thought the munitions issue “had been fixed,” according to both people familiar with the conversation, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation.

The shortages, particularly in long-range guided missiles and air-defense interceptors, have been part of the reason Trump has pulled back from launching additional massive strikes against Iran in recent days, one of the sources said.

Trump said Monday that he had ordered and subsequently called off “the biggest attack since World War II,” pending claims of new negotiations over the Strait of Hormuz.

The president asserted overnight that the United States has “massive amounts” of munitions, saying in a post on Truth Social that “large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed.” The “‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” he added.

While the United States has announced new production agreements for some of the most critical munitions, such as Patriot air defense missiles, the munitions themselves can take as long as two years to produce, and there’s no immediate relief in sight for the shortages.

In the first month of fighting alone, the U.S. fired off more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles and more than 1,000 Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems, The Post previously reported.

The U.S. also used more than 1,300 of the Army’s tactical ballistic missiles in the initial weeks of fighting, one U.S. official told The Post. The ATACMs stockpile — a short-range missile also in demand by Ukraine — is drained to the extent that there’s basically none left, said one of the people familiar, and reported earlier this week by Reuters.

The scarcity of defensive munitions has had an impact beyond the Middle East. Ukraine is running out of air defenses, and there are few options with which to replenish from Western stockpiles, leaving them exposed to Russia’s long-range attacks. [Continue reading…]