Critical shortage: US used nearly half its key missiles in Iran war

[0:00] CNN has learned that the U.S. military has significantly depleted its stockpile of key [0:04] missiles during the war with Iran. And according to experts, this reduction is so severe it has [0:10] created a near-term risk of the U.S. running out of ammunition should a future conflict arise in [0:16] the next few years. CNN's Natasha Bertrand is with us now with her reporting on this. It's [0:20] some new reporting here. Natasha, walk us through what you've learned. Yeah, Brianna, so according [0:26] to this new study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which was their findings [0:32] were confirmed by three sources familiar with recent Pentagon assessments of U.S. stockpiles, [0:38] the U.S. is running dangerously low on some of these key munitions that would be required to [0:43] confront a near-peer adversary in the short term, like China, for example. So while the U.S. does [0:49] still have sufficient munitions to continue bombing Iran, for example, if the shaky ceasefire were to [0:55] fall apart, if they were to need to confront an adversary like China or like Russia, for example, [1:02] then that could pose significant problems for the United States. Now, just to give you an example [1:07] of how much the U.S. stockpile has been depleted over the last seven-plus weeks of war on Iran, [1:13] according to this assessment and the sources that we spoke to, the U.S. military has expended at least [1:18] 45 percent of its stockpile of precision-strike missiles, at least half of its inventory of THAAD missiles, [1:24] which are designed to intercept ballistic missiles, and nearly 50 percent of its stockpile of Patriot air defense [1:30] interceptor missiles, which are, of course, very key air defense munitions. Now, the U.S. military [1:37] has also expended approximately 30 percent of its Tomahawk missiles stockpile, which are those long-range [1:43] munitions that are really key to attacking targets further away. More than 20 percent of its stockpile of [1:50] long-range joint air-to-surface standoff missiles and approximately 20 percent of its SM-3 and SM-6 [1:56] missiles. Now, this is important because these munitions take a while to be replaced. And according [2:01] to our sources and this analysis, it would take anywhere between one to six years to replace a lot [2:07] of these munitions. And so this is a really big problem that we should note that the chairman of the [2:12] Joint Chiefs, General Dan Cain, he actually warned about. As the administration was preparing to [2:17] potentially go to war with Iran, he was raising concerns, we're told, about this issue of depleted [2:23] stockpiles around the world, particularly ones that could be very useful to U.S. allies like Israel [2:29] and Ukraine. So the Pentagon is preparing to ask for a supplemental from Congress for additional [2:35] funding to try to replace these munitions. But it could still take quite some time before those are [2:39] actually back in U.S. stockpiles, Brianna. All right. Thank you, Natasha, for the reporting. Boris? [2:45] Joining us now to discuss this and more regarding the war with Iran is retired Army Major Harrison [2:50] Mann. He's a former Defense Intelligence Agency official, also the Associate Campaign's Director [2:54] for Win Without War. Major, thanks so much for being with us. When you hear that report, [2:59] how much do these shortages concern you? They concern me and for more reasons just than [3:04] running out of ammo fighting Iran. Part of this is a math problem that we knew the answer for [3:10] before this war started, right? We knew what our stockpiles were, and I used to work with the [3:14] folks at the Defense Intelligence Agency who used to do their best to count how many missiles and [3:19] drones Iran had. And so there's really two things that I want to draw out of here. One is that the [3:26] folks, politicians and experts who were advocating for war with Iran, they were just kind of detached [3:32] from reality. We've run out of up to 50 percent of strategic defensive interceptors a month into a war [3:40] with a regional power, right? This is Iran. And from that, we also got to kind of extrapolate [3:45] folks who are advocating for war with China. That is a global power. The fact that we are totally [3:52] unprepared for these conflicts is not an argument for us to gear up for war, but it should make us a [3:57] little more introspective when we have people saying it's going to be a slam dunk and we really [4:02] need to fight these wars. The other thing I want to pull out of this, I think, you know, you could be [4:08] watching this report about us running out of all these critical munitions and say, well, wait a [4:12] minute, don't we have the most powerful military in the world? Don't we have the biggest military [4:16] in the world? We just spent nearly a trillion dollars on the Pentagon last year. Why don't we [4:22] have enough ammo? And I think it's important for folks to understand, especially as we move into [4:28] talking about supplemental funding or a new defense funding bill, that these hundreds of billions of [4:35] dollars that Congress gives the president for war largely do not go into things that we would say [4:40] we need for war. The reason that we don't have enough air defense interceptors is because instead [4:47] we've been spending that money on like these big projects that are kind of designed to be expensive. [4:54] Like, I hate to describe it this way, but a lot of this $900 billion budget, and that's what Congress [5:01] passed last year, nearly every Republican and over 50% of Democrats too, kind of becomes a slush fund [5:08] for defense contractors. Raytheon, Lockheed, and instead of producing the defensive capabilities [5:15] that you say we might need, instead of doing things like paying to get black mold out of the [5:20] soldiers' barracks, instead of going towards getting better bomb shelters for the hundreds of U.S. [5:25] troops who've been wounded in this war, we're building big vanity projects like the F-35 Stealth [5:30] fighter, which we learned pretty early on in this war, is not that stealthy. Iran caught it on [5:34] camera and shot at it. Or like Ford-class aircraft carriers that the toilets don't work on. And so [5:40] I think it's really important to understand if you see these numbers and are shocked or worried by [5:46] them, more money is not the answer, more judicious spending is. There's also an aspect to this [5:52] specifically when it comes to Iran, and I'll get to China in a moment, but financially it's [5:57] asymmetrical, right? I've heard some experts describing the U.S. weaponry as a Ferrari [6:02] out in the skies over Tehran, and the Iranians essentially shooting like a razor scooter at a [6:08] Ferrari. It's way less expensive for them to take out the U.S. and Israel's equipment than the [6:14] inverse. How does the U.S. make that more efficient? Does it need to adjust toward a more Ukrainian-like [6:21] model? So this is another reflection of our misguided priorities, I would say. Drone [6:26] proliferation in the Middle East has been a threat for at least a decade. We saw them popping up in [6:30] the Syrian civil war, and Iran has been a leader in this field. As you mentioned, Ukrainians out of [6:37] necessity figured out much, much cheaper ways to deal with this threat. Why haven't we invested in [6:44] them? Again, these are because of decisions that Congress and successive military leadership made. [6:49] And it's really unfortunate, because how did the first U.S. troops die in this conflict? It was a [6:54] drone strike. Yeah. I did want to get your thoughts on China, because this morning President Trump said [6:59] the U.S. intercepted a ship that had, quote, a gift from China. This is notable because, as the [7:05] President is saying that he was sort of surprised by this, we talked about last week the letters [7:11] exchanged between he and President Xi of China, in which Xi effectively promised Trump that China would [7:18] not be supplying ammunition to Tehran. Do you think a shipment of arms from China could have [7:25] gotten sent to Iran without Xi knowing, without Beijing being aware of what was being transported [7:31] to Iran? I don't think that that would be possible, but we also have to note that the accusation here [7:36] is a dual-use system. I see. So that could be electronics. It doesn't necessarily mean they sent [7:41] them missiles. A lot of Iran's missiles and drones do depend on electronics, circuit board stuff that [7:48] they can't manufacture domestically. So this could have been something routine, or it could have been [7:54] China testing the waters and trying to keep the Iranian war effort going. It's hard to be sure right [7:59] now. Major Harrison Mann, thank you so much for the perspective. Appreciate your time. [8:01] Thank you.