Reports detail US munitions depletion as Iran campaign pauses

What happened

• CNN reported on Tuesday, 4 August, that the US has used nearly 80 percent of its THAAD interceptors and about half its Patriot stock.
• Sources cited by Reuters, CBS and CNN say virtually all ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles are spent; Tehran Times adds nearly half of US Tomahawks.
• Analysts cited by CNN and Reuters put rebuilding the stockpiles at three to five years at current production rates.
• Tehran Times dates the start of the joint US-Israeli campaign, called Operation Epic Fury, to 28 February.
• Kpler counted eight Hormuz crossings on 4 August, down from ten on Sunday; Brent stayed below $80.

The view from outside

FAZ, writing from outside the war, foregrounds Iranian tactics rather than American inventories: coordinated salvoes, manoeuvring missiles and strikes on radar systems that increasingly penetrate US and Gulf air defences. It points to an Iranian missile attack on targets in Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain on 16 July.

What could happen next

• Whether Washington is party to the Hormuz talks is disputed: Axios says yes, Iranian officials deny it.
• No date, terms or enforcement mechanism for an interim agreement on the strait appears in the sources.
• The Pentagon has published no inventory figures; the CNN and Reuters numbers rest on anonymous sources.
• Patriot depletion is given as about half by CNN, up to 65 percent in the CSIS data cited by Tehran Times.