Six months into the war in Iran, the U.S. military has burned through nearly its entire stockpile of precision long-range missiles — the ATACMS and PrSM systems that let the Pentagon hit targets from a safe distance without risking pilots.
Reuters reports that sources briefed on the matter don’t even have a solid number on what’s left, because there’s so little to count.
These aren’t cheap: each missile runs over $1 million, and they’re the same munitions the U.S. has been sending Ukraine to strike inside Russian territory. One source told Reuters that Central Command has been quietly restocking from supplies held elsewhere around the world — a claim the White House flatly denies.
Which brings us to the part where the administration insists everything is fine, actually. The White House says the country has “far more munitions than anyone in the world,” courtesy of a statement from Trump touting defense contractors running at record production. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell backed him up, insisting the military has “everything it needs” and has pulled off “multiple successful operations across combatant commands.”
Reassuring, except this is now the second report in a week suggesting the war effort is stretched thinner than officials are letting on — following word that a top U.S. general in Europe warned the Pentagon he doesn’t have enough forces to protect Israel either.
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