AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): A new report by the Inspector General of the US Department of Defense shows that the country's war against Iran, in addition to imposing heavy financial and military costs, has placed pressure on the United States' strategic ammunition stockpiles and revealed weaknesses in the capacity of the American defense industries to rapidly replace consumed ammunition.
According to this report, submitted to the US Congress on Monday, the terrorist operation known as "Operation Epic Fury" between February 28 and June 30, 2026, incurred approximately $33.4 billion in costs, of which $22.3 billion was solely related to consumed ammunition. However, many figures, such as the extent of damage to American bases in the region, are not included in this number; a figure stated contrary to the figure announced by experts, and US war experts believe the consumption cost was higher than this figure.
The Pentagon Inspector General stated that the rate of ammunition consumption in this operation led to the creation of a "strategic deficit in stockpiles" and simultaneously revealed bottlenecks in the American industrial base for resupplying ammunition. This part of the report is important because the issue is not merely the consumption of part of existing stockpiles; rather, the capacity of American defense industries to rapidly rebuild these stockpiles has also been limited.
The Gap Between Trump's Claim and the Pentagon Report
The publication of this report comes as Donald Trump, the President of the United States, has repeatedly rejected concerns about the decline in the country's weapons stockpiles. Trump recently claimed that America possesses "almost unlimited ammunition"!
Trump also claimed again on Monday on his social network that America is producing "premium and elite weapons" more than at any time in its history; but the official report of the US Department of Defense's oversight body shows that increased production does not necessarily mean the ability to rapidly compensate for the extensive consumption of ammunition in a war of attrition.
Pressure on Long-Range Missiles and Defense Systems
This report has also been published in circumstances where reports had previously been published about pressure on America's long-range guided missile stockpiles and air defense interceptor missiles.
According to a previous CNN report, the shortage of long-range missiles and air defense interceptors has affected America's strategy in the war with Iran. In this context, THAAD system interceptor stockpiles have also faced a sharp decline, and according to this report, the US Army has consumed approximately 80 percent of its stockpile of these interceptors.
Heavy Cost of Operations and Damage to American Equipment
According to the Inspector General's report, the war has not only affected America's ammunition stockpiles but has also caused damage to the country's military fleet.
The list of announced damages includes:
4 F-15 fighter jets destroyed;
1 F-35 damaged;
7 KC-135 refueling aircraft damaged;
and up to 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones lost.
The sum of these damages, alongside the $33.4 billion cost of the operation, provides a picture of the high cost of continuing the war for Washington.
Over a Thousand Targets on the First Day of the War
US Central Command has announced that American forces attacked over a thousand targets in Iran in the first 24 hours of the war.
However, the US military did not return to such a level of extensive attacks in subsequent months. This change could be related to the issue of ammunition consumption and the necessity of managing weapons stockpiles during the war; although the Inspector General's report does not necessarily directly attribute the reason for the reduction in operations in subsequent months to this issue.
In other words, the ability to carry out an extensive attack at the beginning of the war differs from the ability to maintain the same level of operations for months, and the new Pentagon report precisely emphasizes this vulnerability in the area of stockpiles and ammunition resupply.
American Bases Under Iranian Missile Fire
Another notable section of the report relates to the damage inflicted on American military infrastructure in the region.
The Pentagon Inspector General announced that Iranian attacks caused damage or destruction to hundreds of buildings and structures at American bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan.
However, these damages have not been included in the $33.4 billion estimate of the operation's cost, because it is not yet clear whether all these bases will be rebuilt or which party will bear the cost of their reconstruction.
This section of the report shows the scope of war costs beyond the direct cost of firing missiles and using ammunition, because the reconstruction of damaged military infrastructure in various regional countries could impose significant additional costs on Washington.
The Main Weakness; High-Intensity War and Limited Regeneration Capacity
The most important message of the report can be summarized in one statement: America's problem is not merely the amount of ammunition it has consumed, but the speed at which it can produce and replace this ammunition.
The United States over the past decades had organized a significant portion of its defense industrial capacity for more limited wars and short-term operations. A high-intensity war with extensive consumption of precision missiles, air defense interceptors, and aerial munitions can confront this structure with a different test.
The Pentagon Inspector General's report, referring to "industrial bottlenecks," effectively shows that even possessing a massive defense budget and the most advanced military equipment does not necessarily mean possessing high capacity for a long war.
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