The US military has fired more than 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles in four weeks of war with Iran, burning through the precision weapons at a rate that has alarmed some Pentagon officials and prompted internal discussions about how to make more available, said people familiar with the matter, The Washington Post reported on Friday.
The missiles, which can be launched from Navy surface warships and submarines, have been a staple of US military attacks since they were first used in combat in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War. But only a few hundred are manufactured each year, meaning the global supply is limited. The Pentagon does not publicly disclose how many missiles are in its inventory at any one time.
Tomahawks are prized in part because they can travel more than 1,000 miles, reducing the need to send American pilots into well-defended airspace. The heavy reliance on them in the Iran conflict will require urgent discussions about whether to relocate some from other parts of the world, including the Indo-Pacific, and a concerted long-term effort to build more, said several U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military planning.
The dilemma has laid bare broader concerns in both the Pentagon and Congress about the Trump administration’s war in Iran, its shifting explanations for why the conflict is necessary, and the potential risks a shortage could pose to the United States as it balances the potential for future conflict in other parts of the world. It is also present as the White House contemplates a potentially major escalation with ground troops in Iran even as it pursues negotiations to end hostilities.
The Pentagon has tracked the number of Tomahawks used with an increasing focus on what the burn rate will mean for not only for a sustained campaign against Iran but for future military operations as well, people familiar with the matter said. One official characterized the number of Tomahawks left in the Middle East as “alarmingly low,” while another said that without intervention, the Pentagon is closing in on “Winchester” — military slang meaning out of ammunition — for its supply of Tomahawk missiles in the Middle East.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, did not directly address questions about the number of Tomahawk missiles expended or remaining in the Middle East and said 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.”
He asserted without evidence that the news media is “biased and obsessed with portraying the world’s strongest military as weak,” and said that scrutiny of weapons employment to date in the war inaccurately suggests that the Defense Department has failed to provide U.S. personnel “every advantage to be successful” while attempting to “frighten and sow doubt in the minds of the American people.”
Modern Tomahawks have been in service since 2004 and allow U.S. forces to communicate with the missile via satellite. They can strike preprogrammed targets or locate adversaries on the fly through GPS. It also can loiter over a battlefield and has a camera on board capable of relaying battle-damage information to commanders.
