WASHINGTON — The U.S. Defense Department is seeking tens of billions in additional funding to replenish its munitions following nearly 40 days of combat operations in Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee last week, saying the Pentagon requires $87 billion to address critical equipment shortfalls.
The request comes after the war, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, cost the U.S. government $37.5 billion, the vast majority of which went toward munitions, according to official figures.
U.S. forces struck more than 13,000 targets across Iran during the conflict. American air defenses intercepted more than 1,700 Iranian drones and ballistic missiles over the same period, the White House said. A ceasefire took effect April 8.
President Donald Trump, speaking at the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit earlier this month, urged arms manufacturers to "build more weapons, and build them faster." He has denied any shortfall, telling the Wall Street Journal on Monday, "We have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need."
Trump was reportedly advised to shelve plans for escalating the conflict over concerns that further action would drain American stockpiles.
Hegseth's request to Congress marks a shift from his position last month, when he denied that supplies were thinning out.
Publicly available data compiled by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies indicates depleted stockpiles. Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at CSIS who has researched the issue, said manufacturing a single missile can take "one to five years," adding there is "nothing you can do to speed that up."
The most critically affected munitions include long-range ground attack systems and air and missile defenses. Stockpiles of Patriot, THAAD, Standard Missile-3 and Precision Strike Missiles are now at 50 percent or less of their pre-war levels, according to the analysis.
Among the ground attack systems that saw heavy use were Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, typically fired from ships or submarines.
Defense Department officials told The Washington Post in July that the Pentagon has scaled back training and maintenance operations to conserve funds. The department is separately seeking $67 billion from Congress to address the budget shortfall created by the war.
The United States has paused its strikes on Iran to allow negotiations to proceed.
