The Pentagon has revised its Iran war cost estimate upwards from $25 billion to $29 billion. “A lot of that increase comes from having a refined estimate on repair and replacement costs for equipment,” acting Pentagon comptroller Jules Hurst told the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee yesterday afternoon, reported Politico. That cost is largely driving the $4 billion increase, Hurst said, but the estimate also includes operational costs and munitions.
EIR’s estimate of the full cost of the Iran war – including destruction of infrastructure in various countries, collapsing production due to shortages, etc. – is actually in the range of $4 trillion.
News reports have led Congressional appropriators to believe that the administration will be making a supplemental appropriations request to cover Iran war costs. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), the chair of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, told self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth, during a morning hearing on May 12, that it would be helpful to get the supplemental request “sooner rather than later, so we can get to work.” Hegseth declined to answer, however, when Calvert asked when Congress might see the supplemental request.
The latest estimates put the supplemental at about $80-$100 billion, which would be counted as FY26 spending. It comes as Congress is grappling with the FY27 budget request of $1.5 trillion and follows the $150 billion that was added to the Pentagon’s $850 billion FY25 budget as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
But no matter how you do the math, U.S. military spending is skyrocketing into the stratosphere.