Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command (Centcom), said he is "not concerned at all" about the U.S.'s munitions inventories amid reports that the Pentagon has depleted its stockpiles to fight Iran.
Page A2From§Eachthe supper edition — 13 September 2026
Administration brands munitions-shortage warners 'treasonous scum,' polygraphs them, then says it's not concerned at all.
As it ran on the front
Admiral Brad Cooper sat down with Norah O'Donnell for "60 Minutes" and said it plainly: he is not concerned at all about the munitions stockpile the United States needs to keep flying against Iran's missiles and drones. That's the commander of Centcom, on camera, answering the question everyone's been asking since the reports started. I take him at his word. Four-stars don't go on national television and bluff about ordnance counts. Case closed, column over — except it isn't, because the week doesn't end there.
Ten days earlier, on September 3rd, the president was asked about those same reports of depleted stockpiles and didn't just deny them — he called the people sounding the alarm "treasonous scum." Treasonous. For counting shells. Now, if the admiral is right and there's nothing to worry about, that's an odd word to reach for. Unless — and I'm just thinking out loud here — the people getting called traitors were the ones who'd actually seen the number.…
…(cont) Two days after that, on September 5th, the Pentagon started running polygraph tests. Not on everyone. On the high-ranking officials and civilians suspected of talking to reporters about the shortage. That's standard counterintelligence practice, and I want to be clear that lie-detector tests targeting the specific staff who raised the alarm are not, by themselves, an admission that the alarm was correct. They're a leak investigation. A leak investigation into whether the leak was true. Which — hold on. If there's nothing to the story, what exactly were the machines built to catch?
So here's the sequence, in order, same month: warn about the shortage, get called treasonous, get polygraphed, and then have your own commander go on network television and say there's nothing to be concerned about at all. That's not a contradiction if you squint. It's actually — it's a communications strategy, is what it is. You handle the leak, you handle the leaker, and then you handle the cameras. In that order. I don't love saying it in that order, but that is the order.
The Nation ran a piece in August arguing the real shortage isn't production, it's the foreign policy generating the demand faster than any factory can keep up. I'm not going to litigate that here. I'm just going to note that nobody polygraphed the people who wrote it.
“They polygraph the guy who tells the truth about empty shelves, then wheel out the four-star to say don't worry about it — that's not confidence, that's a cover story in a dress uniform. Trump calling the people counting the shortfall "treasonous scum" isn't an overreaction, it's a tell: you don't need a word that heavy unless somebody's close to the real number. The shells aren't the shortage — the honesty is.”
“Look — Admiral Cooper looked Norah O'Donnell dead in the eye and said "not concerned at all." That's not spin, that's a four-star's professional judgment, and it's not open for debate. The polygraphs are unrelated, standard counterintelligence hygiene, they run those routinely on — okay, they ran these specifically on people who'd talked about the shortage, but that's a coincidence of timing, not a — did I just say that. Forget I said that.”
The receipts
"60 Minutes" correspondent Norah O'Donnell spoke to Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander in charge of the war in Iran. He told O'Donnell "I'm not concerned at all" about a munitions shortage to defend against Iranian missile and drone attacks. Watch the full interview on "60 Minutes" on CBS or Paramount+ this Sunday, Sept.
· Pentagon issues polygraph tests in hunt for leakers of munition shortages: Report from the morgue, 5 Sep 2026
· Trump says ‘treasonous scum’ are warning about US munitions shortage from the morgue, 3 Sep 2026
· The Real Reason There’s a Munitions Shortage from the morgue, 26 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.