WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – The Pentagon has subjected roughly 50 members of the U.S. military’s Joint Staff to polygraph tests in an unprecedented investigation into leaks to journalists, as the Trump administration struggles to contain mounting evidence of strategic failure and logistical collapse in its seven-month war against Iran.
The tests, conducted in August, targeted military officers and civilian employees over disclosures to journalists about dwindling U.S. munitions stocks, including critical shortages of long-range missiles and Patriot interceptors. 
Investigators questioned personnel about whether they had provided classified information to the press, in a sweeping probe that retired Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter called “unprecedented” in modern military history.
No officials failed the polygraph questions designed to determine if they leaked information, according to CBS News. Investigators were also concerned about whether a government official was potentially operating 

as a foreign spy because access to the specific munitions data was highly restricted.
President Donald Trump has described critical media coverage of the war as “treasonous” and pressed officials to “hunt down” those responsible for leaks. 
The leak investigations have added to an atmosphere of distrust and paranoia inside the Pentagon, according to current and former officials, who say the environment has been encouraged by extremist war secretary Pete Hegseth.
The investigation follows separate unauthorized disclosures, including a leaked portion of the Secretary of Defense Orders Book showing six four-star leaders formally expressing dissent about extending large-scale terrorist war against Iran, warning the war is “unsustainable” and erodes global readiness.
Separately, the Pentagon has ordered the U.S. military to disable ad trackers on troops’ phones, computers and other devices amid fears that commercially available location data is being used by Iran to track and target American forces in West Asia.
U.S. military branches have disabled advertising IDs on devices amid concerns that location data could expose American troops to Iranian attacks. The Air Force told Senator Ron Wyden it disabled advertising identifiers on computers and mobile phones two months ago. 
U.S. Special Operations Command said it had “recently” disabled them on its Windows devices. The Army told Reuters that advertising IDs tied to mobile devices had been disabled since earlier this year.
The Army said in a statement that advertising IDs had been blocked on Windows computers “since before 2021” but that Android and Apple mobile devices had only had the feature disabled by default “since at least February 2026”.
The leak crackdown comes as the Pentagon faces mounting scrutiny over the sustainability of its naval operations. A New York Times investigation revealed that Iran’s destruction of a key U.S. Navy logistics base in Bahrain has left the fleet trapped in a severe logistical nightmare.
With regional ports now within range of Iranian missiles, U.S. support ships must travel 2,200 miles to Diego Garcia or 3,700 miles to Singapore for resupply. The U.S. Navy currently has approximately 20 ships and 20,000 sailors deployed in the region, requiring more than 420,000 meals and 8 million gallons of fuel every week. 
Warships now depend on complex at-sea resupply missions every five to six days, a process the Times described as dangerous and unsustainable.
The USS Abraham Lincoln spent more than 250 consecutive days at sea without a single port call — a modern record — before being relieved this week. 
The Pentagon fired three Stars and Stripes journalists — publisher Max Lederer, editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and reporter Lara Korte — who exposed deteriorating conditions aboard the carrier, including food rationing, contaminated drinking water, broken sanitation systems, black mold and deteriorating mental health among its 5,000 crew members.
The journalists filed a lawsuit alleging their dismissal was retaliation for their reporting and for speaking out about editorial interference by the Pentagon. The Pentagon, according to the complaint, ordered Lederer to fire Slavin and Korte after their CBS News interview discussing censorship concerns. 
A Trump-appointed federal judge on Friday refused to block the dismissals, ruling the journalists were unlikely to succeed in their First Amendment claim.
Extremist war secretary Pete Hegseth, surrounded by a close circle of loyalists, has pushed out or blocked the promotions of at least 80 generals, admirals and other officials since taking office. 
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned this week, warning that Hegseth’s leadership could cause “generational damage” to the military.
Some Republicans in Congress have begun publicly criticizing the war secretary. Senator Thom Tillis, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote that he had “never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country” and called on Trump to replace Hegseth.
“Hegseth is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense,” Tillis wrote. 
Retired Major General Randy Manner described Hegseth as “a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States”.
Hegseth has not briefed the Pentagon press corps on the war since May 5 and has sought to restrict journalists’ access to the building. The Pentagon has also dismissed the publisher and editor-in-chief of Stars and Stripes, prompting a lawsuit from the three journalists who accused the administration of “extraordinary censorship efforts”.
Trump, meanwhile, has sought to downplay the scale of the conflict, describing it as “small potatoes” and backing Vice President JD Vance’s claim that it is “not a war”.
“I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing,” Trump said on Friday. When pressed by a reporter on describing the conflict as “small potatoes” when 18 U.S. service members have been killed, Trump responded by claiming that the war had defanged Iran’s nuclear program.
The war has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $50 billion, with the Pentagon seeking another $70 billion to cover its losses. Fortune magazine has reported the war is costing approximately $1 billion per day. 
Only 25 percent of Americans believe the war was worth its cost, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, raising the prospect that the prolonged conflict could cost Republicans control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
The war has driven gasoline prices up 40 percent since February to $4.11 per gallon, while thirty-year mortgage rates have risen to 6.65 percent from 5.98 percent before the war. 
The New York Times, in an op-ed by former Biden envoy Robert Malley and historian Stephen Wertheim, described Trump’s war in Iran as “unnecessary, unjustified, and illegal” — an aggression that has “disrupted the region, damaged the global economy, and angered the American people”.