Munitions for Iran Strikes Ran $5.6B in First Two Days

The opening barrage of US strikes on Iran consumed an estimated $5.6 billion in munitions over two days, three officials told Congress on Monday. The estimate is intensifying concerns on Capitol Hill over how quickly the attacks are drawing down advanced weapons stocks, the Washington Post reports, as well as renewed questions from lawmakers about the impact on military readiness. The Trump administration has repeatedly played down the concerns, and a Pentagon spokesman told the Post in a statement that the military has "everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President's choosing and on any timeline."

The White House plans to seek a supplemental defense funding package, potentially in the tens of billions of dollars, to sustain operations, officials said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine said the campaign is shifting from expensive precision munitions toward more abundant, cheaper, laser-guided bombs as US and Israeli forces move inland after securing air dominance. Analysts say that change could reduce the cost per strike from millions of dollars to under $100,000 in some cases. The Pentagon also is reallocating high-end air defense assets from other regions, including moving parts of a THAAD system from South Korea and drawing on Patriot interceptor stocks in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere.

The Pentagon has already fired hundreds of precision weapons, hitting more than 5,000 targets with over 2,000 munitions since hostilities began Feb. 28. President Trump said after meeting with defense contractors Friday that they'd agreed to quadruple production of certain arms, per the New York Times. Among those concerned about the rate at which the US is using up munitions are its allies, Politico reports. Some European nations need to restock, with weapons the US pushed them to buy, after diverting arms to Ukraine and are concerned they won't be delivered. "The munitions that have been and will be fired are the ones that everybody needs to acquire in large numbers," said a northern European official.