The Pentagon’s top budget official told Congress on Wednesday that the Iran war has so far cost taxpayers an estimated $25 billion, marking the department’s first public disclosure of the total price tag since the conflict began.
The figure, provided by Pentagon Comptroller Jay Hurst, came during a contentious House Armed Services Committee hearing that turned into a broader debate over the war’s cost and trajectory. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced sharp criticism from Democrats who argued the administration is waging an expensive conflict without congressional authorization.
Hurst said the estimate largely reflects munitions, as the U.S. expended thousands of missiles and bombs in an air and missile campaign that struck 13,000 targets. Dozens of U.S. aircraft have been damaged or destroyed in the war, including an F-35 fighter, four F-15E fighters, cargo aircraft and drones.
The panel’s top Democrat, Washington Rep. Adam Smith, said lawmakers had been seeking a cost estimate without success.“I’m glad you answered that question, because we’ve been asking for a hell of a long time,” Smith said. “No one was giving us the number.”
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In March, during the first week of the Iran war, Hurst said the cost was roughly $11 billion at that point.
Pentagon officials said a supplemental spending request may come once the department makes a full assessment of the cost of conflict. Lawmakers who met with Hegseth behind closed doors this week said they didn’t get a timeline or scope for that request.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, questioned the accuracy of the estimate and asked what a supplemental request would include. Hegseth declined to go into specifics but said any request would go beyond Iran and cover broader munition needs.
At least one analyst questioned Hurst’s tally in a social media post. Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow with the foreign affairs think tank Stimson Center, suggested that key munitions alone exceed $17 billion.
“This can’t be the full bill,” she wrote on X, adding that the damaged equipment adds up to “at least another $5 billion. And that’s before operational costs, base damage, etc.”
Wednesday’s hearing was organized around the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion budget request for fiscal 2027, but Democrats zeroed in on what they said was Operation Epic Fury’s limited impact, high cost and lack of an endgame.
The war is driving down President Donald Trump’s popularity and has shocked global markets. Democrats, who hold an advantage heading into November midterms, signaled they would intensify oversight if they win control of the House.
Democrats on Wednesday accused Trump of overstating progress to end the war, alienating allies and pursuing an unrealistic strategy.
“As we sit here today, Iran’s nuclear program is exactly what it was before this war started,” Smith said. “They have not lost their capacity to inflict pain. They still have a ballistic missile program. They’re still able to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, and have the ships still capable of doing that. What is the plan to get that to change?”
Hegseth pushed back forcefully, defending Trump’s launch of preemptive strikes to counter Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
“You have to stare down this kind of enemy who’s hell-bent on getting a nuclear weapon, and get them to a point where they’re at the table,” Hegseth said. “President Trump saw Iran at its weakest moment and took action.”
Pressed on why the administration launched a broader war after previously claiming Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “obliterated,” Hegesth said Iran had continued its nuclear pursuits. He argued U.S. forces had achieved “incredible successes,” and he lashed out at critics in Congress.
“The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” he said.
In one of the hearing’s most heated moments, Hegseth blasted Democratic Rep. John Garamendi of California, who accused him and Trump of “lying to the public” about the war. Hegseth said Garamendi was undermining troops by criticizing the war on television.
“The way you stain the troops when you tell them two months in… you should know better,” Hegseth said. “Shame on you for calling this a quagmire, two months in.”
Lawmakers from both parties raised concerns about military readiness. Connecticut Rep. Joe Courtney pointed to the redeployment of aircraft carrier strike groups from the Pacific to the Middle East, including the Virginia-based USS Gerald R. Ford, now at sea for more than 300 days.
“They’ve gone through fires, plumbing problems, and again, an extended deployment, which, in my opinion, is hitting readiness as hard as anything I’ve seen in the time that I’ve been on this committee,” said Courtney, a Democrat.
Hegseth’s testimony came amid bipartisan backlash from lawmakers about the administration’s lack of transparency around the war’s rationale and endgame. A handful of Republicans have joined Democrats in votes to end military involvement against Iran and several more have threatened to do so.
U.S.-Iran peace talks appeared to have stalled amid a ceasefire, but U.S. Central Command has been waging a naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz aimed at crippling Iran’s economy.
The war has reduced U.S. munitions stockpiles as the Pentagon is fighting to ramp up the defense industry’s capacity to build more quickly. Some of the most in-demand missile-defense interceptors take years to build and cost vastly more than the Iranian drones they have been used against.
Hegseth said the budget request would help the defense industry “double and, in some cases, triple or quadruple capabilities and capacities,” which he said would lead to more factories and would ease a backlog of arms sales to allies. The Pentagon has helped stimulate more than 250 private investment deals in 39 states worth $50 billion.
Committee Chair Mike Rogers, of Alabama, said the goal of the annual defense policy bill for this year is to expand the Pentagon’s legal authority to extend the defense industrial base.
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