(A)Political - March 21st

Good morning everyone,

A wild week at home and abroad. Let’s dig in!

The War Department has now authorized thousands of additional troops to the Middle East amid the ongoing Operation Fury. Former FBI Director James Comey has been subpoenaed for his alleged role in the 2017 investigation into Trump. Medicaid administrator Dr.Oz sets fresh targets over Medicaid fraud in Florida.

• War Department Authorizes Thousands More For Middle East Deployment

• Former FBI Director Comey Subpoenaed For Federal Investigation

• Dr. Oz Targets Medicaid Fraud In Florida

War Department Authorizes Thousands More For Middle East Deployment

_{By: Atlas}

The United States military is sending thousands of additional Marines and sailors to the Middle East, three U.S. officials confirmed Friday, as the war against Iran reached its three-week mark and the Trump administration weighs its next moves — including the possibility of ground operations to secure the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's enriched uranium stockpile.

The latest deployment centers on the USS Boxer, a San Diego-based amphibious assault ship, along with its 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and accompanying warships. One official said the troops were departing the West Coast approximately three weeks ahead of schedule. The expeditionary unit carries roughly 2,500 Marines.

The USS Boxer deployment is the second such dispatch in days. A separate Marine Expeditionary Unit, built around the Japan-based USS Tripoli, was already en route to the region and was reported crossing the Strait of Malacca near Singapore on Wednesday, with arrival in Middle Eastern waters expected by the end of the month. Together, the two deployments would bring two full Marine Expeditionary Units to the theater.

Those forces will add to the 50,000 U.S. troops already in the region. The officials who confirmed the deployments spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss future operations publicly. The White House referred questions to the Pentagon, which did not immediately respond.

Trump, asked Thursday whether he was putting troops anywhere, said he was not — but added that if he were, he would not announce it to reporters.

What the Troops Could Be Used For

No decision has been made to put U.S. troops inside Iran, two of the officials said. But the Marine Expeditionary Units are versatile formations. They can launch airstrikes from the ships using aircraft on board, or they can deploy Marines on land. Officials said the buildup is designed to expand the capacity for potential future operations, without committing to a specific course of action.

Options under consideration, as reported separately, include securing the Strait of Hormuz — potentially by placing U.S. forces along Iran's shoreline — and sending ground forces to Kharg Island, the hub through which roughly 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports pass. The Trump administration struck Kharg Island's military infrastructure earlier this month while deliberately sparing its oil facilities, with Trump warning that restraint could be reversed if Iran refused to reopen the strait.

In a Friday interview on Fox News, Trump said he needed "numbers" to reopen the Strait and called on allied nations to send warships. He added that he was getting "very close" to meeting U.S. objectives in the war.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has declined to preview what options the administration was prepared to exercise, telling reporters the administration would not telegraph "what we're willing to do or how far we're willing to go." He has said the president "gets to control the throttle."

The Uranium Question

Alongside the Strait of Hormuz, the fate of Iran's enriched uranium stockpile has emerged as the other central unresolved question of the war. Iran is estimated to hold approximately 970 pounds of near-bomb-grade enriched uranium — enough material to potentially build as many as 10 nuclear weapons, should the regime decide to weaponize it.

Much of that material is believed to be buried under rubble at Iran's Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan facilities, which were struck in U.S. bombings last June. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said this week in Washington that the assumption is the uranium has not been moved. "The impression we have is that it hasn't been moved," Grossi said, adding that the bulk is likely beneath rubble at the Isfahan facility with lesser amounts at Natanz and Fordow.

Nuclear experts say actually securing or destroying the material cannot be done without putting U.S. troops on the ground in Iran — a significant escalation that carries both military and political risk. Richard Goldberg, who served as director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction for the National Security Council during Trump's first term, said the mission is doable if air superiority is established, but added that it would be far more complex than other recent operations. The likely need to remove rubble to reach the uranium canisters would require heavy construction equipment on site.

Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, acknowledged the difficulty plainly. "No one has given me a briefing on how you would do it without boots on the ground," he said. "It doesn't mean you can't. But no one's ever briefed me about it."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat on the same committee, went further. "Some of the objectives that he continues to espouse simply cannot be achieved without a physical presence there — securing the uranium cannot be done without a physical presence," he said.

The Cost and the Patriot Problem

The scope of the buildup is reflected in the Pentagon's funding request. A U.S. official told Reuters the Pentagon has asked the White House to seek more than $200 billion from Congress to fund the conflict — a figure that reflects the sustained scale of the operation.

One pressure point that has drawn less public attention is the strain the war has placed on Patriot air defense missile stocks in Europe. U.S. defense officials said a sizable number of Patriot interceptor missiles have been moved from Europe toward the Middle East as Washington has diverted resources to the Iran campaign. Two Patriot missile systems were sent from Ramstein Air Base in Germany to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey after three Iranian ballistic missiles were fired over Turkish airspace since the war began. A second Patriot system was positioned in southeastern Turkey's Malatya province, where a NATO radar station is based.

One official described the situation as "pretty concerning," saying Patriot stocks in Europe are "absolutely" dwindling. Part of the problem, officials noted, is that U.S. and allied forces are using Patriots against low-cost Iranian Shahed drones — threats that don't warrant that level of munitions but are consuming them at a rapid pace. Patriot missiles are expensive and not quickly replaceable, and every one used in the Middle East is one that can't respond to Russia if Moscow were to decide to act.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week warned publicly that Kyiv would "definitely" face Patriot shortages as a result. He told the BBC that the U.S. produces 60 to 65 Patriot missiles per month, approximately 700 to 800 per year, and noted that 803 were used on the first day of the war in the Middle East alone. The Foreign Policy Research Institute estimated that the U.S. used around 325 Patriots in the first 96 hours, with the total used by Washington and its Gulf partners reaching approximately 943 in that period.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, asked to address the shortage concerns, said in a statement that "the U.S. military has more than enough munitions, ammo, and weapons stockpiles to achieve the goals of Operation Epic Fury laid out by President Trump — and beyond."

Public Support and Political Risk

A Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed Thursday found that 65 percent of Americans believe Trump will order troops into a large-scale ground war in Iran. Just 7 percent of respondents said they supported that outcome.

Trump ran in 2024 on a platform that explicitly included keeping the U.S. out of new Middle East conflicts. His decision to launch Operation Epic Fury on February 28 has strained that commitment, and the prospect of ground troops entering Iran — even for a limited, time-defined mission — would carry significant political risk ahead of November's midterm elections. The war already polls poorly, and deployments of the scale now being reported would extend the conflict in ways the administration has publicly declined to forecast.

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, which has been at sea for more than nine months, is heading to Souda Bay in Crete for repairs following a laundry room fire. The Navy is sending the USS George H.W. Bush to replace it in the theater.

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