NYT: Vance sought ‘unvarnished’ views on Iran war directly from commanders

US vice president JD Vance directly sought “unvarnished assessments” of the Iran war from US military commanders in the Middle East, Europe and Asia, New York Times reported. 

The newspaper said that Vance, who opposed the war from the outset, sought direct intel from commander on “objectives, tactics, casualty estimates, what the Iranians would do in the Strait of Hormuz, how adaptable they had become and how much punishment their government could absorb”.

Vance wanted the commanders’ “individual judgments, in their own words, before they were consolidated into a Pentagon view”, the report said.

He also asked for a detailed accounting of what remained in the commanders’ stockpiles, and how the transfer of weapons to the Middle East would affect their ability to deter China, Russia and North Korea.

On the stockpiles, the commanders “were blunt”, NYT reported, adding, “they were most worried about their depleted stocks of Patriot interceptors, the backbone of their air defences”. 

By late spring, one theater was down to fewer than 100 of them. The war had also exhausted the theater’s supplies of the Army Tactical Missile Systems, which can reach 190 miles, along with stores of the Precision Strike Missiles, which were meant to replace them. 

NYT said the report was based on interviews with more than a half-dozen current and former officials.