The US Department of Defense's independent inspector general has confirmed that the war with Iran caused "strategic inventory shortfalls" in munitions and bottlenecks in resupply, directly contradicting President Donald Trump's repeated claims that US weapons stockpiles are "virtually unlimited" and that reports of shortages are "fake news". The White House rejected the watchdog's findings, insisting the military has "more than enough" munitions, while Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth have separately dismissed shortage reports as untrue and, in Trump's case, accused leakers of treason.

The inspector general's report found the US spent more than $22bn on munitions between February and June, with equipment losses totalling $3.7bn and other expenditures of $7.4bn, bringing overall war spending to $33.4bn (£24.7bn) over that period; a separate Congressional Budget Office estimate put the total cost at $38bn. Losses included four F-15E fighter jets, an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and 30 MQ-9 drones, while earlier analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies suggested stocks of interceptors such as Patriot and THAAD missiles had been depleted by more than half in some cases. Polling shows the war is unpopular domestically, with only 23% of Americans believing the US is now in a stronger position against Iran than before the conflict began.