Pentagon’s Inspector General released a detailed report earlier this month revealing the U.S. Department of Defense improperly tracked most weapons and military equipment Americans supplied to the IDF after Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 affecting a significant portion of weapons delivered under $13.4 billion in military aid.
According to Defense News, while the Pentagon maintained records for 69% of defense products requiring enhanced monitoring delivered to Israel before the war, afterward that figure dropped to just 44%.
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Two main reasons are cited: first, staff shortages; second, changes in the operational environment in Israel. In other words, the IDF was consuming American-supplied weapons so rapidly that Americans simply couldn't keep up with documentation.
The Inspector General's report states that from October 2023 to April 2024, Americans failed to track delivery of over 4 million munitions across 42 shipments because most equipment had already been engaged in Israel’s extended military operations.
However, the specific list of weapons missed during tracking isn't disclosed. Notably, this inventory could include a wide range from aviation and artillery munitions to small arms ammunition.
The report emphasizes that the U.S. faced identical tracking problems with supplied weapons in Iraq from 2013 to 2017, and apparently no conclusions or mechanisms to solve this problem were developed.
Overall, recent years' news suggests weapons accounting in the U.S. is a rather weak point. As an example, relatively fresh data from September this year revealed the U.S. Army had no idea where nearly $1 billion worth of munitions were located, including weapons like THAAD system missiles.
Defense Express previously reported that in 2022, the U.S. ordered fewer JDAMs and SDBsthan Israel dropped bombs in just six days of combat operations.
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