Trump could go much further than Iran with

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday claimed that the United States has “more than enough capability” to “go much further” in its struggle alongside Israel against Iran, including that America has secret weapons stockpiles.

But her claims about the depth of U.S. munitions distinction with leaks from the Pentagon last week suggesting that if strikes in Iran continue for more than 10 days, the stock of some essential missiles already could run low.

The Wall Street Journal last month reported that General Dan Caine, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, had issued a warning to President Donald Trump about the dangers of an prolonged marketing campaign in Iran.

The Washington Post further reported that Caine said an inadequate munitions stockpile could show harmful in the event of a strong retaliatory assault by Iran. American munitions, including those used in missile protection systems, have already dwindled to worrying numbers after 4 days of bombing, according to the Post.

Still, Leavitt and the president have maintained that any reporting as to the alleged lack of munitions shouldn’t be a concern.

“With respect to munitions, the United States has more than enough capability to not only successfully execute Operation Epic Fury but to go much further,” she said during a press convention on Wednesday. “We have weapons stockpiles in places that many people in this world don’t even know about. Unfortunately, we had a very stupid and incompetent leader in this White House for four years.”

Though the U.S. can ostensibly use its trillion-dollar protection funds to afford a struggle in Iran, the constraint is its stockpile of interceptor missiles, according to a senior fellow at the Stimson Center assume tank.

Christopher Preble, talking to Al Jazeera, said that high interception charges of the Patriot and SM-6 missiles can not continue for long.

“It is reasonable to speculate that the pace of operations right now, in terms of numbers of interceptions, could not continue indefinitely, certainly, and perhaps could not continue for more than several weeks,” he told Al Jazeera.

Preble added that new missiles can’t be manufactured instantaneously.

“A Patriot missile or an SM-6… is a very complicated piece of equipment,” he said. “It’s not like they’re cranking them out, hundreds or thousands a day. That’s not the pace of manufacturing.”

The U.S. has extra interceptor missiles in other elements of the world, Preble said, but shifting them to the Middle East on short discover could current challenges.

“Some of these interceptors are used or were intended to be sent to Ukraine to deal with Russian strikes on Ukraine,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Some of them are used in Asia, in the Indo-Pacific, not currently used, but they would be important in the event of a contingency in the Indo-Pacific. So there would be some concern with removing those weapons from that theater.”

The concern over munitions comes as Trump and Leavitt on Wednesday continued the administration’s oscillating justifications for its initial strikes against Iran on Saturday, offering conflicting explanations just hours aside over whether or not the strikes had been meant to shield against an imminent assault on the U.S. or as assist for Israel.

Leavitt, at a press convention on Wednesday afternoon, claimed that the president’s determination to strike Iran was based on his “feeling based on the fact that Iran does pose an imminent and direct threat to the U.S.,” despite having said for months that Trump’s strikes last 12 months completely “obliterated” the nation’s nuclear infrastructure.

But Trump, hours later, gave an various cause: “If we didn’t do it first, they would’ve done it to Israel,” he said.

Their statements adopted a almost an identical, two-sided clarification from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. On Tuesday, in a tense exchange with reporters at the Capitol, Rubio tried to discredit his own suggestion a day earlier that Trump determined to strike Iran because Israel was prepared to act first.

He denied making the assertion, despite it being captured on video, and instead said Trump himself made the choice to assault because it introduced a distinctive alternative for success.