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United States top military leaders met with lawmakers in a private meeting on Tuesday and said they might not be able to destroy all the Iranian drones that are being sent toward US military bases and targets as part of revenge attacks.
Two individuals who were informed about the matter stated this after the meeting on Wednesday, as reported by the Guardian UK.
The officials, including the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, General Dan Caine, said Iran is sending out thousands of drones that can only go one way.
He said they have the ability to destroy most of the attacks, but not all of them.
At the closed door meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill the officials said the US is working hard to destroy the places where the drones and regular missiles are launched as fast as they can.
In response to US attacks, Iran has been sending out its cheap, one-way attack drones called Shahed.
By flying at a low altitude and moving slowly, the drones are more likely to avoid detection and escape traditional air defense systems compared to ballistic missiles.
A senior administration official said Iran’s apparent drone strategy – to get the US to sacrifice its most sophisticated Patriot and Thaad interceptors – was misguided and unsuccessful because the US has been downing the drones with several different measures.
Some of the top Democrats in Congress are worried because the US has been using up a lot of interceptors to stop ballistic missiles sent by Iran.
A person who knows about the situation said Caine recognized the concern, but he still felt confident about the amount of stockpile available in public statements.
Caine said at a news conference at the Pentagon on Wednesday morning that they have enough precise weapons for the job, both for attacking and defending, but he didn’t give any specific information or details.
The fast rate of shooting has cost a lot. At the start of the war, the US was spending around $2 billion each day, but that number has now gone down to about $1 billion. It’s likely to go even lower as the war goes on, according to someone who knows about a preliminary analysis from the defense department.
A White House representative did not reply right away when asked for a comment. A spokesperson from the joint chiefs of staff would not comment because of security reasons related to operations.
On Monday night, Trump posted on social media claiming the US could keep up its bombing rate forever. He said the supply of “medium and upper medium grade” weapons was “almost endless.”
He admitted that weapons at the top level are not where they should be. At a press briefing on Wednesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, stated that the United States has more than enough weapons to fight a long war with Iran and said that Trump’s comment was criticizing the Biden administration’s decision to send weapons to Ukraine.
Leavitt said, “We have stored weapons in locations that most people in the world don’t even know about.
“The President said that, unfortunately, we had a very foolish and poor leader in the White House for four years who handed over many of our best weapons for free.”
We may not have capacity to take down full barrage of Iranian drones – US military officials warn
