This proposal was made by the US Central Command (CENTCOM), which argues that Iran has moved the launchers out of reach of the Precision Strike missile - a weapon that can hit targets at a distance of about 480km, many well-informed sources revealed.
If approved, this will be the first time the US has deployed supersonic missiles, a weapon that has not yet been declared fully combat-ready.
The weapon mentioned is the Dark Eagle - the US Army's long-range supersonic missile system, with a range of about 2,780km.
According to the US Library of Congress, this weapon is designed to carry out long-range precision strikes with conventional weapons, aimed at "time-sensitive" targets and is strictly protected.
Sources say that each Dark Eagle supersonic missile costs about 15 million USD and currently the number of missiles the US possesses is no more than 8 missiles. Each deployment complex also costs up to about 2.7 billion USD.
In another development related to the Iranian conflict, at the hearing of the US House Armed Services Committee, Pentagon Acting Auditor Jules Hurst III stated that the estimated cost of the conflict to date is about 25 billion USD.
As of today, we are spending about 25 billion on Operation Epic Fury" - Mr. Hurst said on April 29. He added that most of this money is spent on ammunition, including deployment, maintenance and equipment replacement.
When asked if the Pentagon has not updated the US Congress on the cost of the conflict since it broke out and plans to request Congress to provide additional funding, Mr. Hurst said: "We will draft an additional report, through the White House, and will submit it to Congress after we have a full assessment of the cost of the conflict.
In March, Pentagon officials told Congress that the conflict had cost 11.3 billion USD in just the first 6 days.
Three sources familiar with the matter revealed to CNN that the $25 billion that senior Pentagon officials provided to senators was considered underestimated, because it did not include the cost of repairing major damage to US military bases in the Middle East region.
A source said that the actual cost could be nearly 40-50 billion USD, if including the reconstruction of military facilities and replacement of destroyed equipment.
Iran's attacks across the Persian Gulf in the early days of the conflict have caused significant damage to at least 9 US military sites in just 48 hours, targeting facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar.
Many important radar systems and other US equipment in the Middle East are also believed to have been destroyed, including radar of a THAAD missile defense system in Jordan and buildings containing similar radar systems at 2 locations in the UAE. In addition, an E-3 Sentry airborne early warning aircraft of the US Air Force was also destroyed in an Iranian attack on an airbase in Saudi Arabia.
