A Pentagon official offered its first official price tag for the Iran war Wednesday, and the figure landed at a tidy $25 billion. But several lawmakers, and at least one of the department's own past disclosures, suggest the real cost might be much higher.
Jules Hurst, who is "performing the duties of the comptroller," as Reuters put it, told the House Armed Services Committee that most of the $25 billion has gone to munitions, with the rest covering operations, maintenance and equipment replacement.
Hurst, seated alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, didn't say whether the figure accounted for repairing the U.S. bases pummeled by Iranian strikes in the war's opening days. Facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE and Qatar, by CNN's count, received significant damage.
Three sources told the network the real number is closer to $40 billion to $50 billion once base reconstruction is factored in.
In March, the administration pegged the cost of just the first six days of fighting at $11.3 billion. Sixty days in, the Pentagon would now have us believe the subsequent 54 days cost roughly $14 billion — less than half the daily burn rate of week one. Sen. Chris Coons called the estimate "low." Rep. Ro Khanna called it "totally off."
Even the admitted cost is an astonomical sum. $25 billion is more than the federal government spends annually on the National School Lunch Program (about $17.7 billion in FY 2024). It exceeds the cost of every student loan relief proposal Congress has rejected as a fiscal bridge too far. SNAP cuts in the most recent budget cycle were justified by savings of less than half this figure.
They'll soon be asking for more, too: a supplemental funding request, Hurst said, is forthcoming
Previously:
• Trump threatens 'charges for treason' against media covering Iran war
• Iran's $2,000 drones vs. America's $5 million missiles
• Pentagon deploys 5,000 more Marines to Middle East as Iran tensions escalate
