A new report shows the US has burned through a huge chunk of its stockpile of critical weapons since it launched its ongoing assault on Iran on February 28
The US has burned through billions of dollars’ worth of its critical weapons stockpile during Donald Trump’s war on Iran, according to a new report.
The Pentagon has fired more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles – each costing over $4 million – as well as more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, according to congressional officials and internal Defence Department estimates obtained by The New York Times.
The US military is also reported to have used around 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a potential war with China, close to the total remaining in its stockpile. It has fired more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles – roughly ten times the number it buys each year, the report said.
White House officials have not given an estimate for the cost of the war so far, but The New York Times reports that two independent groups place it between $28 billion and $35 billion.
A separate study carried out by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) this month suggests the war has cost the country between $25 billion and $35 billion – with $5.6bn blown in the first two days of the conflict alone, a congressional source told The Hill.
Rebuilding the stockpile to its previous size could take years, according to Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. “At current production rates, reconstituting what we have expended could take years,” he said this week.
Officials told the New York Times that the Defense Department is still waiting on Congress to approve any additional funds before it can sign off on replenishing the military’s diminishing supply.
It comes as the Trump administration said in January it had secured seven-year agreements with defence contractors to ramp-up production, though officials told the publication there has been no effort to start the expanded production effort as of yet since the White House is scrambling to source the funds it needs for the war.
“The United States has many munitions with adequate inventories, but some critical ground-attack and missile-defense munitions were short before the war and are even shorter now,” Mark F. Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, added.
However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed the “entire premise of this story” as “false”.
She said: “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.”
