Suspicion is growing that the U.S. Department of Defense is failing to properly report missile inventory shortages to the White House, the British daily Telegraph reported on the 21st (local time).

"It is not an environment where people bringing bad news or realistic reports meet good outcomes," an official said, adding, "A culture of silence has taken root."

The remark suggests that as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth successively dismissed military leadership, an atmosphere has formed within the Pentagon where unfavorable information is withheld from being reported.

Because of this, concerns are also being raised that decisions on expanding the conflict with Iran may have been made without fully reflecting actual conditions, such as missile stockpiles.

Observations that the U.S. military's missile inventory dropped significantly after U.S. airstrikes on Iran in late February have been raised previously.

In a report last March, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in the U.K. analyzed that the U.S. and its allies expended more than 11,000 various types of munitions during the 16 days following the launch of military operations against Iran, and that core precision munitions could run out within a month.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a U.S. think tank, forecasted that at the current trend, inventories of Tomahawk cruise missiles will not recover to previous levels until 2031, and THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) interceptor missiles until 2029.

Ryan Brobst, a researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), pointed out, "If air defense missile inventories decline, a situation could arise where only one interceptor missile is fired at the same threat instead of two," adding, "That lowers the probability of successful interception accordingly."

However, the White House dismissed the rumors of missile shortages.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly emphasized, "The U.S. military possesses more than enough ammunition and weapon inventories to achieve all of President Trump's strategic objectives."

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)