THAAD loss forced greater reliance on Patriot missile systems whose interceptors were already depleted before the first shot was fired in latest Iran conflict.

 

A bitter dispute has broken out inside Washington over the state of the United States’ weapons stockpiles, as its war against Iran raises questions over whether American forces are burning through irreplaceable military assets faster than they can replace them; and whether President Donald Trump had any business starting the fight in the first place.

 

The argument has been sharpened by the destruction of a key, $300-million radar system at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, confirmed by a US official this week to news agency Bloomberg.

 

The AN/TPY-2 radar, manufactured by RTX Corporation and essential to directing America's THAAD missile defence batteries, was obliterated in the opening days of the conflict that began on February 28.

 

The US-Iran war has, so far, been defined by two images: Iranian drones and missiles plunging to the ground and exploding and interceptors streaking into the skies to stop them. The key question facing military strategists is which will run out first. (AFP)

 

 

Its loss has forced greater reliance on Patriot missile systems whose interceptors were already, by many accounts, dangerously depleted before the first shot was fired, news agency AP reported.

 

Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in a statement that the US military "has everything it needs to execute any mission at the time and place of the President's choosing and on any timeline”.

President Trump reinforced that message by posting on social media that several defence contractors had agreed to “quadruple” production of certain weapons "as rapidly as possible”. He gave no detail on which systems he was talking about.

 

 

Lockheed Martin subsequently confirmed it had agreed to "quadruple critical munitions production" and stated that it "began this work months ago”, without providing a timetable for when increased output would materialise.

Democratic lawmakers have greeted those assurances from the Republican government with scepticism, and in some cases scorn.

"Our munitions are low. That's public knowledge," said senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He added, "It will require additional funding; funding where we have other domestic needs as well."

Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut went further, drawing a direct line between the current crisis and America's prior commitments to Ukraine.

"We've been told again and again and again, one reason that we can't provide interceptors for the Patriot system or other munitions for Ukraine is that they're in short supply," he told CNN.

 

For many Democrats, this debate only fueled a larger political objection; that Trump has dragged the United States into a conflict it did not need to fight.

Defence analysts have tried to cut through the political noise with numbers. Ryan Brobst, deputy director of the Centre on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, estimated that roughly 25% of the entire THAAD interceptor stockpile was used up defending Israel from Iranian ballistic missiles during a 12-day confrontation last June.

"These were already in very high demand and we had not procured enough before the conflict," he said, "And now we've probably used, between the two of them, probably several hundred more."

Brobst added, though, "I'm not particularly worried about us actually running out during this conflict."

 

He argued, "It's about deterring China and Russia the day after this conflict is over."

Tom Karako of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies noted that the US operates only eight THAAD batteries globally. "There aren't exactly any spare TPY-2 lying around," he said, referring to the destroyed radar. With that system gone, its interception duties fall to Patriot batteries operating with PAC-3 missiles that cost millions of dollars each.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed this week that Middle Eastern (or West Asian) nations allied with the US had fired more than 800 such missiles in just three days. This exceeded the total stockpile Ukraine has held throughout its entire four-year war with Russia.

The question of how America arrived at this point has become the nub of the debate.