Washington: The United States’ cost of war in Iran has climbed to 29 billion dollars, an increase of $4 billion from an estimate provided late last month.
The Pentagon said on Tuesday the cost of the war with Iran had touched to nearly $29 billion,The new figure was revealed by the Defense Department during a budget hearing on Capitol Hill,
President Donald Trump faced mounting scrutiny over the conflict and its impact on military readiness.Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were testifying on a $1.5 trillion budget request for 2027 alongside Pentagon finance chief Jules Hurst III.
but the joint staff team and the comptroller team are constantly looking at that estimate, and so now we think it’s closer to 29,” he said — citing updated “repair and replacement of equipment costs” and broader operational expenses.
Pressed on when Congress would receive a fuller accounting of the war’s costs, Hegseth said the administration would request “whatever we think we need” separately from the main Pentagon budget, but did not say when that supplemental request would arrive.
Several experts, however, questioned the Pentagon’s ledger, saying the real cost to US taxpayers is likely to bemuch higher than the publicly stated estimateSome lawmakers have argued the price tag also fails to take into account the knock-on effects to the US economy, including higher prices for consumers caused, in part, by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
In April, US Representative Ro Khanna claimed the war would cost the US economy about $631bn.
