The Pentagon burned through $5.6 billion worth of munitions during the first two days of its military assault on Iran, according to three U.S. officials, a figure that underscores the deepening alarm among some on Capitol Hill over the speed at which U.S. forces have eaten into the scarce supply of America’s most advanced weaponry.
The estimate, shared with Congress on Monday, raises new questions about the Trump administration’s broad dismissal of lawmakers’ concerns that the Iran operation is quickly eroding the military’s readiness.
The Trump administration also is expected to send Congress a supplemental defense budget request as soon as this week — potentially totaling tens of billions of dollars — to help sustain its campaign, officials said. That, too, is expected to face opposition from many Democrats whose attempts to restrain the administration from further military action in Iran have come up empty.
In response to questions from The Washington Post about the state of U.S. weapons inventories, Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, issued a statement saying the Defense Department has “everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President’s choosing and on any timeline.”
It’s unclear how long the war could last. President Donald Trump said last week that the operation could take more than a month, though on Monday he told CBS News that it is “very complete, pretty much,” citing Iran’s significant military losses.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine told reporters last week that the campaign was transitioning away from its reliance on precision munitions and instead will increasingly use the more plentiful stores of laser-guided bombs as U.S. and Israeli forces push inland after establishing air superiority over Iran.
The $5.6 billion figure highlights how costly the strikes were before that transition began, said the officials, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive estimate. They did not specify how many and what kinds of munitions were expended in the war’s opening days.
The Post has previously reported that the military has fired hundreds of precision weapons since the start of hostilities on Feb. 28, including advanced air defense interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles. U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations throughout the Middle East, has said that to date more than 3,000 targets have been hit in Iran using more than 2,000 munitions.
Mark Cancian, who closely monitors U.S. inventories at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the shift away from these longer-range munitions will dramatically lower the price of each strike — from millions of dollars spent on each round fired to less than $100,000, in some cases.
As it churns through its inventories, the military also is rerouting assets from other parts of the world, including the Indo-Pacific region, where lawmakers have long feared that any U.S. conflict with China would be challenged by the Pentagon’s limited stocks of high-end weapons.
The Pentagon is moving parts of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system from South Korea to the Middle East, according to two officials. The military also is drawing from its supply of sophisticated Patriot interceptors in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere to bolster its defense against Iran’s drone and ballistic missile attacks, these people said.
One of the officials said the moves were not due to an immediate shortage of weaponry in the Middle East but were rather a precautionary measure in case Iran drastically increased its rate of retaliatory attacks, which has fallen more than a week into the conflict.
“The more THAADs and Patriots you shoot, the more risk you assume in the Indo-Pacific and in Ukraine,” Cancian said.
The two air defense systems are considered the most advanced in the world.
Ahead of the operation, Caine had warned Trump that an extended conflict with Iran could deplete U.S. stocks of precision weaponry, sapped after years of support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and the administration’s other military action in at least seven countries, The Post has reported. The administration has sought to downplay Caine’s assessment.
Analysts have said they’ve been surprised at the sophistication of Iran’s retaliatory strikes, including its ability to target and at times overwhelm key parts of U.S. and Israeli air defense systems such as radars and command and control infrastructure.
Russia is supplying Iran with intelligence to enhance the accuracy of its strikes against American forces, a move that could compensate for the damage the Iranian military has sustained in the war.
Three American F-15 fighter jets were also downed in a friendly-fire incident with Kuwait. Cancian estimated that the planes cost about $100 million each.
Seven American service members have died a little more than a week into the war, six during a drone strike in Kuwait and another after an attack in Saudi Arabia.
John Hudson and Ellen Nakashima contributed to this report.
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