U.S. Has ‘Burned Through’ Eye-Popping Amount of Munitions During Trump’s Iran War: Report

AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

The United States has used a staggering amount of its weapons cache in the war with Iran, spending millions and blowing through a large chunk of its stockpile in the two months since the conflict began.

The ongoing conflict with Iran has lasted barely eight weeks, yet in that time the U.S. has fired off a truly stunning number of missiles, a report from The New York Times found. Over a thousand Precision Strike and ground-based missiles were deployed in the war, an amount that emptied the U.S. tranche to such an extent that congressional officials and Defense Department estimates showed concern.

“Since the Iran war began in late February, the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the U.S. stockpile,” the report read. “The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly 10 times the number it currently buys each year.”

Munitions have been used to the point where bombs have had to be sent from Asian and European commands to accommodate U.S. needs, draining their own weapons supplies and, crucially, their surveillance capabilities. The U.S. has also reportedly pulled large amounts of missiles and interceptors from South Korea. President Donald Trump’s administration was reportedly compelled to find new avenues for rapid production in response to the waning resources at foreign command centers.

“At current production rates, reconstituting what we have expended could take years,” Armed Services Committee member Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) told the Times. 

But officials also told the outlet that even that timeline could be delayed, as the Pentagon is still awaiting Congressional approval before it can fund more weapons production. Even the administration’s January deal with defense contractors, made before the war, has not yet begun manufacturing, as the Defense Department still needs to acquire funding.

The high cost of the war, which some have estimated to amount to $1 billion a day, is made up in large part by weapons costs, which defense officials said equated to $5.6 billion of munitions in only the first two days of the war. Costs have also been incurred due to aircraft damaged during the fighting.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shot down the outlet’s reporting, claiming in a statement that “the entire premise of this story is false.”

“The United States of America has the most powerful military in the world, fully loaded with more than enough weapons and munitions, in stockpiles here at home and all around the globe, to effectively defend the homeland and achieve any military operation directed by the commander in chief,” she said.

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