Pentagon eyes $3.5 billion restock costs from Israel operations

The funds, outlined in budget documents prepared through mid-May, are meant for both weapons restocking — such as for the missiles fired to repel Iranian attacks, including at least $1 billion for RTX Corp

The Pentagon plans to spend more than $3.5 billion to replenish inventories in the wake of recurring Israel operations, underscoring the costs of maintaining a stepped-up presence in the Middle East.

The funds, outlined in budget documents prepared through mid-May, are meant for both weapons restocking — such as for the missiles fired to repel Iranian attacks, including at least $1 billion for RTX Corp. missile interceptors — as well as for a range of mundane tasks including radar upkeep, refurbishing vessels and transporting munitions.

Almost every paragraph outlining US-specific items to be bankrolled is tagged as an “emergency budget request.”

Detailed in several documents dating back to September and submitted to congressional defense committees, the replenishment blueprint draws on the 2024 Israeli Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, which includes $14 billion in part to rebuild US inventory and pay for more Israeli missile interceptors.

The spending is tagged as necessary to make up for costs to the US Central Command amid responses to “the situation in Israel” or other hostile actions emanating from it, as well as US combat operations “executed at the request of or in coordination with Israel for the defense of Israeli territory, personnel or assets during attacks by Iran” or its proxies.

The documents cite US efforts to counter Iran’s April 2024 attack that involved more than 110 medium-range ballistic missiles, at least 30 land-attack cruise missiles, and more than 150 uncrewed aerial vehicles.

The replenishment requests, which generally stem from costs incurred from late 2023 onward, are separate from $4.2 billion in US weapons and equipment sent to Israel between the Hamas attacks in October 2023 and May, according to an Aug. 7 review of US export records compiled by the Washington-based non-profit Center for International Policy.

The single-biggest request in the documents is for about $1 billion to replace various models of the RTX’s Standard Missile interceptor, primarily the advanced “SM-3 IB Threat Upgrade” version designed to shoot down ballistic missiles and costing between $9 million and $12 million apiece. They were first fired by Navy vessels against Iranian missiles launched during the April 2024 strikes.

Read More: Pentagon Inspector General Will Audit Israel’s Use of US Weapons

The Pentagon is asking to spend $1.4 million to defray costs for a “special assignment mission flight” from the US to an undisclosed location that expedited “the movement of new production SM-3 IB rounds” as replacements for expended missiles, it said.

In June, two Navy Aegis missile defense destroyers in the Eastern Mediterranean — the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS The Sullivans — fired SM-3 missiles in defense of Israel, a US official said. The Navy vessels were joined by a land-based Army unit in the region firing THAAD interceptors at Iranian ballistics missiles, according to another US official.

The second-largest weapons replenishment request in the documents is for $204 million to buy more Lockheed Martin Corp. THAAD missile interceptors. Each interceptor’s basic production cost is about $12.7 million.

Another $9.2 million is requested for deferred maintenance of the THAAD’s powerful TPY-2 radar that “induced an unplanned need to replace eight Prime Power Unit engines and alternators,” according to one of the documents. The Pentagon disclosed in October that it was deploying a THAAD battery to Israel but the latest funding documents disclosed an “unplanned THAAD deployment” at a new location.