GoKawiilPresident Donald Trump restarted the Iran conflict with days of missile strikes, and US intelligence officials now estimate the total military cost of the war for the Pentagon could exceed $100 billion, according to two people directly familiar with the matter.
The officials were tracking the total cost of Operation Epic Fury to be in the $50 to $100 billion range at the end of May, dovetailing with confidential congressional estimates putting the costs to date at around $80 billion.
The Trump administration has not disclosed its cost estimates for the Iran war. In June the White House made a request for $88 billion to cover some of the costs of the war, but even that is an undercounting, the people say.
Part of the reason why a final cost is not available is that the Pentagon is still deciding whether to replace all the aircraft destroyed or damaged beyond repair during the conflict, the people say.
If the Pentagon decides not to replace certain aircraft, defense officials have told lawmakers, they will not request money for it—and therefore not factor that into the total cost of the war, the people say.
Presented with a detailed breakdown of this reporting, a War Department official told Inner Loop: “We have nothing further to announce at the moment.”
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in a report on May 20 compiled using only publicly available reporting that the US had lost at least 17 manned aircraft and 25 drones since the start of the conflict.
The CRS report also showed the US had been losing an increasing number of drones, which are not cheap to replace. Among the 25 drones lost was an MQ-4C Triton, a high-altitude Navy surveillance aircraft that costs more than $600 million per airframe.
The cost of repairing US bases in the region, some of which sustained heavy damage from Iran firing retaliatory missiles and one-way attack drones in response to US strikes, will also be high.
Defense officials have told lawmakers behind closed doors they have not accounted for the costs of repair—and may never do so—if the US ultimately decides to shutter those bases because they are too vulnerable to Iranian attacks, the officials say.
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