Inside the Trump administration’s scramble to support its own war

The State Department is adding resources to evacuate stranded Americans in the Middle East, and the Pentagon is scrambling to increase the number of U.S. troops gathering intelligence for operations — the latest indications that the Trump administration was not fully prepared for the broader war it is now facing.

Amid criticism that the administration has been too slow to alert U.S. citizens that they should leave or help those then caught in the maelstrom, the State Department is sending extra staff to Athens to aid U.S. citizens, according to a current and former department official familiar with consular issues.

A State Department official familiar with the process said Wednesday morning that the top leaders in the department had taken charge of the evacuation operation, much of which would typically be handled by consular and bureau officials.

U.S. Central Command, meanwhile, is asking the Pentagon to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days but likely through September, according to a notification obtained by POLITICO.

It’s the first known call for additional intelligence personnel for the Iran war by the administration, and a sign the Pentagon is already allocating funding for operations that may stretch long beyond President Donald Trump’s initial four-week timeline for the conflict.

The rush to add people and resources to support efforts that are often organized well in advance of U.S. military action highlights how the Trump team had not fully anticipated the wide fallout of the war it launched alongside Israel on Saturday.

“What we’ve seen is a completely ad hoc operation where it appeared that nobody actually understood or believed that military action was imminent,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former senior U.S. diplomat who dealt with the Middle East. “It seems like they woke up on Saturday morning and decided that they were going to start a war.”

The U.S. executed a massive and multi-pronged operation with Israel that targeted Iranian security infrastructure and killed off the country’s supreme leader and other top officials. But American and Israeli officials have not yet articulated a clear end goal for the operation. Trump and his aides also have struggled to offer solid reasons why the strikes had to happen now.

Iran has retaliated by firing on U.S. and other targets across the Middle East. At least six U.S. troops died at port in Kuwait, raising questions about whether their facility had been fortified well enough against the apparent drone strike. Some U.S. diplomatic facilities have also been struck, and concerns are rising that the U.S. and its Middle East allies could run low on munitions.

Several of the people interviewed for this article were granted anonymity because the issue is sensitive and in some cases they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Pentagon is also trying to ship more air defenses to the region, especially smaller, less expensive counter-drone systems that the department has been developing over the last several years, a U.S. official said.

The strike that killed the American troops is of particular concern for war planners because it came from a relatively cheap Shahed drone that can often fly below existing radars. The U.S. is, at least right now, using missiles that cost as much as several million dollars to defeat the drones, which cost a fraction of that. Iran has thousands of such drones in its stockpiles, and dozens of them have already punched their way through existing air defenses.

Many of the counter drones the U.S. could respond with have not been used in combat, the official added, since American forces have not faced a drone threat this pervasive up to this point.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But the limited preparation to assist Americans wanting to leave the region has had the most immediate impact.

While at least two U.S. embassies — in Lebanon and Israel — began sending staff and their families out in the final days before the strikes, most diplomatic missions in the region did not make such moves until after the war began.

It also was Monday before the State Department issued its first major alert to Americans, urging them to “depart now” from 14 countries in the region. By that point, it was hard to get a ticket out because airspace closures had led to numerous canceled flights. The department has since expanded its alerts and evacuations to at least two other countries, Cyprus and Pakistan.

“It’s been a complete dereliction of duty,” said Jeffrey Feltman, a former U.S. ambassador to Lebanon who oversaw the evacuation of thousands of American citizens from that country in 2006. “Iran is a menace without question, but there was no imminent threat to us, and yet [Trump has] left thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans in harm’s way without planning how to get them out.”

The State Department official familiar with the process said relatively few people at the department had been read in on the war plans. That may have contributed to the challenges on evacuation orders and travel alerts, the official acknowledged. The goal is to stabilize the situation as quickly as possible.

That includes staffing up in Athens, and potentially additional places if the crisis worsens. The additional staff can help Americans who arrive on charter or other flights if they need to renew their passports, loans to help them buy tickets or even temporary lodging, the current and former State Department official familiar with consular issues said.

The State Department said in a statement that a 24-7 task force set up Saturday morning had helped more than 6,500 Americans abroad with guidance on security and travel options. State also noted it had issued travel alerts to Americans about the region starting in January, though those alerts were relatively routine for a region with many turbulent spots.

Dylan Johnson, the assistant secretary of State for global public affairs, wrote on X Wednesday morning that since Feb. 28, the day the war began, “over 17,500 American citizens have returned to the United States from the Middle East.” But that number appeared to include many Americans who’d left without any assistance from the State Department.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that the president had told regional leaders “that we expect their help” in getting Americans home.

“The administration is already rapidly chartering flights free of charge and booking commercial options, which we expect to become increasingly available as time goes on and the success of this mission further comes to fruition,” she said. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its broader preparations for the impact of a spreading war in the Middle East.

The Trump administration has, in general, cut back the number of people involved in its national security policymaking process and reduced the meetings that would normally loop in many departments and agencies. Aside from Rubio and a handful of his top aides, much of the State Department has been left in the dark about many key decisions. Rubio also serves as national security adviser, meaning he spends much of his time at the White House.

Still, current and former U.S. diplomats pointed out that the possibility the U.S. would go to war in the Middle East was not exactly a secret.

The administration spent weeks dramatically ramping up its military presence in the region and issuing warnings to Iran. So people at the State Department, including political appointees in the consular affairs bureau, should have known to reduce embassy staffing and urged Americans to leave the region many days or weeks ago, some argued.

“There was no reason not to prepare staff departure plans as this was ongoing, particularly since the Defense Department knew the likely Iranian military responses,” the former State Department official familiar with consular services said. “They also could have started messaging to the region about the fluid security situation.”

Democrats have seized on the evacuation debacle to lambast the Trump administration. It was something of a reversal: Republicans ripped the Biden administration over its handling of the evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies in the final days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) called for oversight hearings on the State Department’s alleged failure to plan for aiding Americans in the region.

“A core function of our foreign policy is to keep Americans safe,” Coons said in a statement. “Thus far, the president’s response to this reckless incompetence has simply been ‘that’s the way it is.’”

In a letter shared with POLITICO, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged Rubio on Wednesday to “take more concrete steps to facilitate the departure” of American citizens and embassy personnel now in harm’s way amid the widening conflict.

The lawmakers want Rubio to explain by Friday how decisions are being made about which countries require departures and what criteria determine the use of charter planes versus the need for military aircraft. They also asked what alternative evacuation options are being considered amid frequent airspace closures, among other efforts. The letter was spearheaded by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.).

Several governors, including California’s Gavin Newsom, New York’s Kathy Hochul and Illinois’ JB Pritzker, have also been communicating with State Department staffers to get updates on Americans stranded in the region as the governors field calls from panicked residents.

Governors’ staff questioned what the administration is doing to bring Americans back, including whether charter or military aircraft are being considered, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

“Americans are stranded abroad, and we all have a responsibility to do everything in our power to safely get them home,” Pritzker wrote in a letter to Rubio on Wednesday.

Daniella Cheslow, Oriana Pawlyk, Cheyanne Daniels, Shia Kapos, Nick Reisman and Jeremy B. White contributed to this report.