Last night, CBS posted a half-dozen never-before-seen photographs of damage to U.S. bases by Iranian missiles. The images were sent to CBS News by active duty service members at those locations. “This is major damage to our bases that hasn’t been communicated to the American public,” one deployed service member told CBS News. “We’re standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face.”
“One photo, taken at Prince Sultan Air Force Base in Saudi Arabia, shows a direct hit on the back half of a Boeing E-3 Sentry four-engine aircraft, its tail severed from the charred fuselage that also supported a rotating radar that is essential for collecting midair intelligence.” The E-3 airborne surveillance aircraft was destroyed on March 27 in a strike that also damaged five KC-135 air refueling tankers. Three images of the wreckage appeared soon afterwards but none since, until now.
“Other photos taken from the base show hollowed-out buildings and barracks whose shells ironically stand next to unaffected cement ‘T-wall’ structures, which were once regarded as critical fortifications against grenade and mortar attacks but proved critically ineffective against an aerial assault,” CBS reported further. “Similarly grim pictures were captured at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, a major staging area for U.S. Army ground troops, armored vehicles and some aircraft….”
The unnamed service member stressed the deadly accuracy of the Iranian missiles. “These are not ‘squirters’ getting through,” the service member added, referencing language used by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after the deadly March 1 attack on Port of Shuaiba in Kuwait that killed six U.S. troops. “We’re not defending these bases. We’re just watching them get destroyed.”
Meanwhile, the Pentagon told Congress last month that the cost of the Iran war has now climbed to more than $42 billion—a $4.5 billion increase to the most recent public estimate from the Defense Department more than six months into the conflict, The Hill reported.
The $33.4 billion figure in the DOD IG report released on Monday covered the period only through June 30, but there’s reason to suspect that both figures are gross underestimates. Linda J. Bilmes, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan senior lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, told The Hill in July that the cost of the war was about $100 billion.
The Hill notes that Democrats in Congress have repeatedly asked the Pentagon and the Trump administration to provide the full cost of the conflict. Last week, the Pentagon’s comptroller’s office said on social media that the department—along with the Office of Management and Budget—provided Congress with more than ten “timely updates” on the cost of the war, including information on “obligations, operational costs and unfunded replacement costs.” It seems, however, that none of those updates has been made public.
Meanwhile, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said Tehran will reveal the true number of U.S. military casualties in its aggression on the Iranian nation in due time. Araghchi said in a post on social media in response to statements by U.S. officials and Pentagon reports on damage to American military bases and facilities: “Claim: Iran is defenseless. Reality: Hundreds of US military bases and facilities have been struck, and dozens of American aircraft have been set ablaze,” he wrote on X. Araghchi said these incidents represented only a fraction of the damage inflicted, adding: “This is only the tip of the iceberg.”
