By the Numbers: U.S. Burnt Through Over $5 Billion in Munitions During First 48 Hours of Iran War

In the first two days of the Iran war, the U.S. used more than $5 billion worth of munitions, the Washington Post reported.

The war began on February 28 with a joint U.S.-Israeli strike targeting Iran's military assets and leadership. The country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in the first minutes of the operation.

The Washington Post reported that early on the U.S. relied on America's most advanced weaponry. The newspaper reported that some in Congress are concerned about whether the U.S. is depleting itself of critical munitions.

U.S. Central Command stated that the military has hit over 5,000 targets in Iran since the start of the conflict.

The Washington Post reported that the military had redeployed assets from around the world to support the Iran war effort. Among the assets sent are the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system from South Korea to the Middle East.

"The more THAADs and Patriots you shoot, the more risk you assume in the Indo-Pacific and in Ukraine," Mark Cancian, who works for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Post.

The cost and supply of munitions has been a concern since the war started. Bloomberg News reported that while U.S. Patriot missiles have been able to take out the drones with interception rates of over 90 percent, the drones cost about $20,000 each, while the missiles cost around $4 million each.

However, Cancian said that as the operation moves away from longer-range munitions, the price of each strike will fall from millions spent per round fired to less than $100,000, the Washington Post reported.

Originally published on IBTimes