FURIOUS Retired General TORCHES Trump Over WAR With Iran!!

So here's today's headline from Axios.U .S.nears Hormuz deal aiming for Wednesday announcement.And the meat on this bone is this idea that the United States, Iran and Oman are close to entering into yet another interim agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.And Look, what's kind of crazy about this, it says here that according to two regional sources, the deal under discussion sets up a 60 -day temporary arrangement between Oman and Iran in the Hormuz Strait, which could be extended.

But, you know, I could have sworn we had a 60 -day agreement.With Iran, that was supposed to help us set up a nuclear accord because, yeah, I care about the price of gas, but I also care about the idea of nuclear capabilities for Iran not being taken care of.But I think we see what the priorities are for this Trump regime.It's, let's try to lessen the economic blow that is being felt by Americans because we're about to lose the midterms in November.But these headlines are annoying to me because they happen all the time.And you get maybe like a 24, 48 hour quote ceasefire.

And then the next thing you know is there's more missiles, more bombing, and more importantly, more deaths of Americans.You know, I had a conversation with retired U .S.Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling about the current state, the military state of this war with Iran, the disadvantage we find ourselves with the amount of missiles that have been deployed in this illegal war of choice, and how it makes us vulnerable to be unable to defend ourselves in other arenas globally.But the important part of this conversationfor me was to explore how angry I am with how callous this Trump regime is with the deaths of active service members, of which there have been 18, and the idea that the Department of Defense is playing games with how they're counting deaths and wounded from this war.

pretending like there was some peace ceasefire that created a natural break in time where they could stop counting the number of casualties.In fact, House Oversight Dems, check this out, they've actually told the Department of Defense that you need to give us information.And of course, this comes from the incredible Congressman Robert Garcia, but this was sent yesterday, August 4th, to Pete Hagseth.And it demands that the Department of Defense provide a complete record of every change in the way that the Department of Defense has been counting death and injury totals, and what rules were used to decide whether a death or injury was going to be counted under Operation Epic Fury or another operation.And I really appreciated how General Hertling explained, because he's a real patriot and that man is a man of integrity, and he explained how this has never happened before.And all of the decades of experience he has in his continuing involvement and relationships with the United States military, this hasn't happened.

This is a characteristically unique convicted felon Donald Trump thing.

And it's disgusting.

Anyway, it was great to be able to have this conversation with him.I learned so much and he actually corrected the record on a few things that I had some, you know, maybe my hackles were kind of up on and he actually talked me off the ledge a little bit on some of the stuff.So take a listen.It's definitely worth your while.General Hertling, it's always so good to see you.

Katie, it is a pleasure to be with you again.And I have to first start off by interrupting you and saying thanks for all you're doing with regard to the legal implications of the Epstein files.I mean, it's fascinating what one person can do in terms of making sure others see what right looks like.So thanks for all you're doing with that.

Well, I thank you so much for that.And I would be remiss if I did not, one, thank you for your service.That is an understatement for me to say thank you.I know I express the gratitude of myself and so many others, countless others, for the service that you've always provided and the sacrifice for this country.And number two, I also wanted to make sure that everybody knew that your book, If I Don't Return, a father's wartime journal, that it really is essential reading.And I think, general, that's actually the perfect segue into the conversation we're about to have.

I wanted to start with some technical stuff because I wanted to make sure that I and my viewers understood what is happening here.There's some exclusive reporting from Reuters, from an incredible reporter who I like, Erin Benko, and this is what she says.She says, the United States has used virtually all of its precision strike missiles during this war in Iran, the war that is ongoing.General, she says, stockpiles on ATACMs and precision strike missiles are almost depleted, and we have used about half of our tomahawks per new data that is circulating inside the administration.General Hertling, can you explain why this is a cause for concern?

Yeah.First, let me clarify a couple of things, Katie, because that tweet that you just read or whatever it was, the posting, had to do with something called the ATACMS.ATACMS means the Army Tactical Missile System.It's a typical military acronym, but it's a long range system that has huge capabilities in terms ofstriking targets at a couple of hundred miles with a great deal of explosives, and precisely right on target.I mean, within five meters of where they're aiming, they're going to hit.

This is the missile system that the Ukrainians wanted for so long to strike deep into Russian territory to hit their logistics bases.It is a very expensive missile system.The missile itself costs about $3 million to produce.It has recently been replaced by another missile system called the PRISM, which is the P -R -S -M, which is part of that posting you just showed.The precision strike missile is a replacement for the ATACM.So don't be confused when that article says, you know, we've used all our precision missile systems.

That doesn't mean all the missile systems in the United States military.That means the newest strike missile, which we didn't have a whole lot of in the first place.So that's an explanation of that.The bad news is that these are something called high demand, low density ammunitions, which means a lot of people want them and there ain't a whole lot of them to go around.So every combatant commander around the world in the Indo -Pacific region, in European command, in central command, in northern command, they all want these things because they are very good and very precise.They're the best long range missile system in the world.

What has happened over the last five months is the military and Central Command has used up a significant portion of them.And including in that is some of the ones we've contributed and given to Ukraine as well.But the stockpiles are low, and it affects other contingency plans like, I don't know, the defense of Taiwan.or the defense of South Korea, or some of the other issues within the Middle East.So when you have the stockpiles going low, as that report claims they have, it puts other combatant commanders in dangers for not having enough missile systems to fight their contingency plans.

Is it unusual, General, to have the stockpiles run so low in such a short window of time of only five months?Or is that a misapprehension on my part about the utility?

It is extremely unusual, Katie.And what I'll tell you is, to get into a little bit more of the details, inside the Pentagon, on the Joint Staff, You have this guy called the J -4.It's the logistics guy on the joint staff.It's a three -star official, either admiral or general.You also have someone called the J -8.They are the acquisitions people.

They monitor the basically the delivery of these kind of weapon systems.And they should be given warnings to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Kane, and the Secretary of Defense saying, hey, we're losing up a lot of stuff, and we're putting other combatant commanders in danger of not having enough.I believe, and I've said this from the beginning, when Secretary Hegseth goes on the TV and claims he's having 15 ,000 strikes across Iran, and every day we're going to do more to them, and we're going to hit every single target, they're using these very expensive missiles to hit those targets, at least some of them.So there doesn't seem to be any boundary on what kind of systems they're using and how it's putting other combatant commanders in jeopardy.Now, I'll tell you something, Katie, when I was a young brigadier,General, I was the J7 on the Joint Staff.

My job was to monitor war plans.And I took that job literally about a month before 9 -11.So the Chairman often asked me, hey, how are what we're using in Afghanistan and Iraq affecting our other contingency plans, which there are dozens, I won't give you the real numbers, but there's multiple dozens of contingencies.And I would have to give them kind of my assessment of how it was affecting the rest of the world.It doesn't seem like that has gotten through to either Secretary Hexeth or President Trump because they want to continue their fighting and continue striking targets in Iran.

And so my gut, which was concerned when I saw this headline, and I appreciate you explaining the nuance on the definition on the terms here, but my gut about concerns about how it makes us at risk operationally for other potential combat areas or areas of the world, that seems to be a legitimate concern then.

Yeah, and we've just talked about the ATACMs and the PRISMs.We haven't talked about the Patriot missiles or another missile called the THAAD, T -H -A -A -D, which are the air defense missiles.I mean, those things were built decades ago, or the Patriots were built decades ago for aircraft.

Well, now we're in a new evolution of warfare.

You've seen a lot of drones.And we're using these multimillion dollar defense missiles, not only in Iran, but also in Ukraine, to knock down very inexpensive targets.like the drones.The drones will cost anywhere from a couple of thousand to a couple of hundred thousand dollars, whereas the Patriots and the Fads are in the millions of dollars.And there's a whole lot more drones than there are Patriots and Fads.So again, it's a dynamic that, you know, this is the science of war.

This is not the art of war.Calculating the resources to execute an operation like we're doing in the Middle East, you have to rein yourself in a little bit.And President Trump doesn't seem to want to do that.

So forgive the, forgive me for a second then, because I want to kind of follow this, this train of thought down to a next kind of logical conclusion, I think is, which is when you deplete this type of of arms, if when you deplete the missiles, when you deplete this type of ammunition, etc., it's got to be generated somewhere else.I mean, this creates a whole new world of opportunity in the military -industrial complex, does it not, to be able to give good contracts to companies to start making all the stuff all over again, right?

Well, I could name the companies that make some of these.You've got Raytheon and, well, I won't go into that.But each one of them are making these missiles in these different systems.But truthfully, Katie, it takes a long time to build it.

I was going to say, doesn't it take some time to make these things?

These are precision weapons that you can pump out.I don't know what the numbers are, but it's not many a year.It's dozens or literally just about 100.When you're using thousands of them, it's hard to replace them.That's why we're seeing some of the stockpiles being reported as depleted right now.

General, I want to stay on this topic because Part of the reporting includes that due to the reduction in the amount of precision missiles that we have, the United States, quote, may have to turn to methods of fighting the war, the quote, more traditional methods, which could bring American lives closer to the front line.Your thoughts about that being a possibility, if that ends up being the case?

Well, we're seeing that already, Katie, and I'll give you some details on the four soldiers that were killed just a couple of weeks ago.Two of the soldiers, the two males, werePatriot missile men.All four of them were air defenders.And they came out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.So they had the big missiles, the Patriot missiles that shoot long range.

The two young women that were killed were out of an air defense organization in Germany, in fact, a place where I once lived, Ansbach, Germany, and they are shooting Stinger missiles, another different type of missile system, which only has a range of between four and six kilometers.So those are the close -in systems versus the long -range systems like a Patriot.So you see that, you know, we're basically combining the long -range stuff with the short -range stuff.It brings different soldiers into the fight from different locations to conduct this mix of defenses in our bases throughout the Middle East.And each one of those bases that is subjected to attacks by Iran, and they are doing a very good job of threatening our allies and partners in the Middle East, All of the U .S.

military bases, which are scattered through the region from Erbil in northern Iraq to Al Asam in Kuwait and, well, several of the bases all over, are all being attacks.Every single one of those places need air defense systems.So it's, again, draining them at different locations, both the long range and the short range stuff.And yes, it does bring our soldiers and all of our military personnel closer into harm's way.

Speaking of, I had a disturbing conversation with United States Senator Tammy Duckworth about what I call the Secretary of Defense and our Department of Defense playing games with the casualty numbers of our dead and wounded as a result of this war.The Pentagon is trying to say that their defense casualtyanalysis system has a new casualty category that they're calling overseas operations.In general, I'm disgusted because we've had 18 active service members die, but they're trying to sit there and say that because there was a, quote, ceasefire in between when armed when the conflict began or the war began.And during that ceasefire and subsequent to when, you know, hostilities resumed, they're like, no, you got to count the numbers differently.So we're trying to not count those numbers of dead and wounded.

Is this the first you've heard of them trying to do this?I mean, you served for so long.I can't imagine that they did this before.

Yeah, Katie, this is anathema, to be honest with you.I mean, as a commander in combat, as a division commander of combat, your responsibility to commander at any level is to track your personnel.your living personnel.When they are wounded in action, killed in action, you are also continuing to track them.I mean, I could pull up a slide right now.I had to brief Congress when I came out of Iraq in 2008 on our various operations.

And one of the slides I briefed Congress was a month -by -month casually chart You know, it not only said killed in action, it also said died of wounds, died of non -battle injuries, which were accidents or suicides or something like that.And then there were different categories for wounded in action.So I was tracking individuals that you know, were not only killed on the battlefield in a firefight, but if a medevac helicopter picked them up and took them to a plane and the plane took them back to Walter Reed or Beaumont, Texas to continue, we tracked them even there to show, hey, are they still okay?Have they died?Have their amputees caused them to succumb?So all of those things were trackers that we used to keep.

I could go up right now on I have an unclassified web page that goes right into the Department of Defense, whichevery operation ever conducted by the US military, all the named operation, Iraqi freedom, enduring freedom, a desert storm, Korean War.And you could see the number of casualties and dead and wounded in action, KIAs, wounded in action, prisoners, all that.This new category of overseas operations First time I've seen that, and it's certainly divorced.from the current operation inside of Iran.And I think it's game -playing in terms of numbers.

The president wants to stand up and continue to do things like say, well, there were more casualties in Iraq or there were more casualties in Vietnam.That gets into a number -crunching game.And I got to tell you, it's insulting to all soldiers because these aren't numbers as far as we're concerned.These are people.These are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.Americans who have sacrificed their all in combat.

And to play silly games like this, which is almost a shell game, is just anathema to me.

And that's part of the reason why I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, your book, because your book, If I Don't Return, really spoke to me.And it really made me think about it when I was having this conversation with Senator Duckworth, because, you know, she really can speak from active combat as a veteran and somebody who has suffered and lost.And she was so upset with this games playing on these numbers.And to your point, I wanted to make sure that I had made it clear with you that this is something that is unique to this Department of Defense and this Secretary of Defense.

you this box on my desk.

Yeah, but I want you to mention it again because I always think this box is so important, sir.

So please make sure you mention it.

again.

Inside the box, I'm going to try and hold it out without spilling.You'll see pictures and cards with soldiers names on them.These are soldiers, 253 soldiers that were in my command that we lost in combat.Every day I open that box and take two or three out and just say a prayer.Think about where they would be today if they were still alive, what their contributions would have done.Again, These aren't numbers.

I just said 253, but these are souls that still rest in that box that I go back to on a daily basis and say, these are the individuals that made the ultimate sacrifice.

This is why I asked you to repeat that, General, because this is always such an important part of these conversations that we have the context of what is happening here and why it's so unbelievably reckless what is happening under this administration.General, sir, I wanted to switch gears a little bit because this was an exclusive and reporting from CNN.The United States military has now sent out an email, quote, looking for new creative and unconventional ways to pressure and punish Iran.That's an email sent from an officer in U .S.Central Command's intelligence branch to a broad group of military analysts.

It is a senior U .S.military officer sent the message last week soliciting new ideas for how to deal with Iran.Both the CIA and the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, have recently assessed that the kind of bombing that the U .S.has been doing is unlikely to shift the Iranian negotiating position.

General, we're now at the point where we're crowdsourcing ideas on how to win this illegal war?

Yeah, I'm gonna push back on this one, Katie, a little bit.This is not unusual.The people that likely sent that note out are in either the intelligence cell or the planning cell.And it got into open source systems, CNN reporting it.But I got to tell you, you know, I would hope that my intelligence guys and gals, my planners, guys and gals, they would be saying, hey, going out to the ecosystem of fellow planners saying, help us out.Anybody got any good ideas?

That works in any kind of organization.But the fact that it's leaked or the fact that it's gone out to the public who doesn't understand how we're constantly in the military trading ideas like that, is an indicator of failing trust and that's the part that hits me i mean the military does this kind of thing they want to get the best idea in terms of fighting a war now.Is it because they've run out of ideas within the central command to fight this conflict?I don't think so.They're just looking for perhaps different approaches and courses of actions to apply in this kind of situation.And truthfully, I know I've done it too, where I've sent messages when I was a planner in a division headquarters saying, hey, I'm stumped on this problem.

Can anybody out there in my network of planners help me out on this?And sometimes they give you good advice and say, well, this is what we're doing in our area of operations, and it might trigger something.So, I don't know.

No, no.And this is why I'm grateful for your candor and for always having the willingness to have these conversations.Because again, you readjust, right?You adjust the way that we're viewing this through the proper lens based upon your training experience.I would ask, though, if we could have this conversation about this ask for new ideas against the backdrop of maybe the beginning of the conversation we're having, which is, are we at the point where this conventional use, the bombing and or the relentless, you know, kind of planning of how they're doing this, it's not working?Yeah.

You know, and so because it's not working, this is the reason why we'reto have to do it.Because every day we're fed a line of bullshit from this administration.Oh, it'll be better tomorrow.Oh, the war will be over tomorrow.Oh, we have a deal.

And right now we all know that that is just, like I said, bullshit, General.And so doesn't that give us some concern that even the tactics and the strategy that our United States military have deployed so far, it's just not working.And so now we're probably looking at yet another endless war with a foreign nation.

You know, Katie, while you're talking, I'm thinking about something.You have just described what the military has taught in all of our war colleges about ends, ways and means of strategy.When you go into a fight, you should have an end state.Here's what I'm trying to accomplish.This is what I think it should look like when it's over.Now, we don't always do that well, but at least we start off saying, here's what we want to do.

That's the end.In order to get to the ends appropriately, you have to start manipulating the ways and the means.The ways are, what kind of approaches are we using?What tactics, what operational art are we applying?What kind of ideas do we need before we go in to try and reach this end state?And can anybody, our fellow planners or intel officers, give us some ways that they think are better?

And I'll explain that in a second.The third thing we've already talked about in this discussion are the means, like missile systems that might run out, or how you apply different carrier strike groups.I mean, we've had a couple of carriers in the Persian Gulf now for about 11 months.Those things are wearing out, and they're getting to a point where not only the ships, but the sailors on board those ships are reaching a culminating point of their endurance in a combat zone.So those means, the resources,the ways you apply them, and what you're trying to achieve is the essence of strategy.

And based on our conversation so far, it kind of seems like each one of those has been ganked up from the very beginning.Don't you agree?

I would.And then now I'd like to play for you some sound.I loathe always playing anything about a convicted felon, Donald Trump.But I think this is very important for us in our conversation, because this is the latest in the state of play coming from Donald Trump.Take a listen, General.And I have a question for you on the other side.

something, but I want to give them every last chance before decapitation.Very tough to do what we have planned, still planned.We'll see what happens.But it's a very, very tough thing to do.I think I'm very proud of the fact that I will give people, I'll give people a chance.This is a big move.

To do an attack that big on a country, I'd rather not do it.Now, we've already through lots of large attacks, but they were normal large.Hopefully they'll come to their senses because what happened cannot have a nuclear weapon.

General, there's a lot there.There is a lot.One, I don't know what a, quote, normal large attack is.But when I hear decapitation, you and I have had very serious conversations here at Katie Fang News about nuclear weapons.I'm, you know, I'm reading and I'm hearing we're depleting our missile.You know, capacity?

Are we now going to go and escalate to nuclear?I mean, you know, there's so much here and the stupidity of this man.And again, against the backof loss of American lives.But I just general, please help me here, because I don't understand what was just said here.

It gets back to what we just talked about, Katie, the ends.You know, the U .S., the president continues to think he has a choice between either massive escalation or political extrication.And he thinks that's going to, you know, defeat Iran, depending on which one he chooses to do.And unfortunately, Iran has got some cards that they can play, too, as like significant control over the economic systems of not only the United States, but the globe with the Strait of Hormuz.

And going back to the extrication or the escalation, the administration isn't prepared for either one of those.They know that there's full well known middle course in this.So this will continue in months of him going back and forth.You know, you talked about atomic weapons.I mean, I was baffled last weekend when the president said the next strike was going to be larger than anything we've seen in World War II.So are you going to conduct a Normandy invasion?

Are you going to have firebombing of Dresden?Are you going to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima or Nagasaki?I mean, I don't know what he's saying.And if, you know, I would suggest that that's being translated to all the military folks in terms of what they should be preparing to do next.And it is just, it's a, I mean, it's a Star Wars bar scene of different options that aren't going to get us anywhere.And he knows that.

He knows that.And he's seeing our allies turn away from him.You know, this morning we had Iran suggest that they were making a partnership with Oman to control this trade.We've seen Egyptships sunk.We've seen the Saudi Arabians say, Please stop.

You're only causing more problems for the UAE, Qatar.We've seen this morning, by the way, bases in Kuwait, which is a major staging base for US military forces, were struck by Iranian missiles with allegedly no casualties, but I'm not sure I buy that.And we're not sure what is happening because The Secretary of Defense and the Department of Defense is not allowing reporters to report accurately.And we're going on the word of the president in the Oval Office who changes his mind every five minutes.

General, before I let you go, though, I wanted to stay on the Strait of Hormuz issue.I think it's critically important.We all know, as Americans, we're feeling that, not just as Americans, across the globe, we're feeling what it's like to have Iran control and close the Strait of Hormuz.I'd like to ask you, not in the economic sense, I want to ask you from the strategic military sense.If Iran and Oman are reaching a deal where they've frozen out America from dealing with the Strait of Hormuz, and Iran saying that The straight would not be charging people a toll, but they charge a service fee to cover environmental impacts on shipping security for cargo ships and tankers and staffing.And the revenue would go between Iran and Oman.

But here's the bottom line.They would be the ones controlling this straight.How is that good for us, even militarily, to be able to have control over that region?

Well, we wouldn't have any military control, according to the deal that Oman and Iran are trying to strike right now.What Oman proposed was something called a joint maritime management system, where they would share oversight of commercial shipping.And the transit by merchant ships would gradually return to normal.And both of thosecountries, because they're on each side of the strait, the northern and the southern side, they would coordinate the vessel clearances.Tehran says, no, no, no, we don't want to do that.

We want to control all inbound shipping.entering the straits, and will allow Oman to control the outbound on the southern corridor.So Iran is attempting to institutionalize what they've been trying to do for decades, and that's de facto recognition of Iranian authority over the strait, and political leverage over Gulf shipping.It's also a mechanism to regulate global energy commerce.And again, I'm not an economist, but I know that's important, talking to some of my naval friends.So Iran is not just negotiating how ships move.

Their negotiation is centered on they become the traffic cops for roughly one -fifth of the world's oil.And you can even up that a little bit if you say that the Baba Mondab Street in southern Yemen that controls the Suez Canal might also be in violence because Houthis in Yemen might be able to control the passage out of the Suez Canal.So you're adding another 20 % of the world's oil that go through that route.going to be a mess.And I'm not a naval expert either.I'm an army guy, but I've talked to a bunch of Navy guys.

And they said this would be very difficult to execute over the long term.John Kirby, our mutual good friend, was in the Reagan tanker wars back in the 1980s.And they were escorting convoys of ships for a certain period of time.And it was draining the amount of forces they had in the area.And at the time, the U .S.

Navy was a 600 -ship Navy.We now have just a little over 300.

always, always speechless.I'm always challenged if it's incompetence or it's intentional intentionality.I, you know, I'm always the jury's out on this, but retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, I am so grateful always for the privilege of your time.It is a privilege.And as I stated at the beginning, saying thank you is just insufficient for the service, your many decades of service to the American people.And I want to make sure that I say this.

Number one, thank you.But number two, everybody really needs to read your book if I don't return a father's wartime journal, because it really, it just really strikes a chord and you do not have to have been a military family or have been a part of a military family to understand really what's at stake.So thank you.General Hartling, good to see you.Thank you for being here.

Lady, I have to apologize, though.I hope I didn't geek out too much on the small tactical details early on in the show.We were getting into some weeds there, but I hope it helped your listeners understand what's going on.

You can geek out as much and as long as you would like.This is exactly what we do here at Sidebar.We go beyond headlines.We dig deep.Like I said, we want to have high -information Americans, and they will be able not only to understand what you've explained, but also to be able to talk about this with other people.That's the goal, to have these conversations with brilliant people like you that aren't speaking out of turn, that understand what's at stake.

And then we can continue to have these conversations at other tables, because I have a genuine fear that this war is gonna keep on going, and it's gonna cost a lot more than just paying at the pump.

And I am very worried about this right now.

I really am.

I have that concern too.But Katie, it's always a pleasure to be with you.Absolutely think you're the best.And again, thanks for all you're doing, okay?

Thank you, General.Thank you so much.Katie Fang here.We launched the Katie Fang News Channel in partnership with the Midas Touch Network, so we could bring you the latest newsand political news.Straight, no chaser.

So if you're a fellow truth teller, hit that subscribe button and share the word about this channel so we can build a high information America together.