The at least $11.3 billion spent in the first days of the Iran war exceeds the $7.4 billion in funding allocated to the National Cancer Institute. This nearly reaches the $12.4 billion spent on Head Start.
How much damage would a war in Iran cost the United States?
The Iran war is costing the United States billions of dollars. National security reporter Cybele Mays Osterman explains.
The first six days of the Iran war cost U.S. taxpayers at least $11.3 billion in munitions alone, according to Pentagon estimates reviewed by lawmakers, and experts say ongoing costs could rise exponentially. This total does not include the costs of operating and maintaining the armed forces engaged in the war or combat losses sustained from Iranian attacks.
The military used about $5.6 billion in munitions in the first two days of the conflict, according to people familiar with the estimates. The cost of munitions was first reported by The Washington Post.
Money spent on munitions and the additional costs of damage caused to U.S. military infrastructure by Iran’s retaliatory attacks on U.S. military bases are not factored into the Pentagon’s annual multitrillion-dollar budget. Given this budget deficit, President Donald Trump may ask Congress for additional money for the war chest, although such a request has not yet been submitted.
The United States and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran on February 28, abruptly ending at least a year of negotiations between the Trump administration and Iran over its nuclear program. Since then, US and Israeli forces have killed many of Iran’s political and military leaders and launched a bombing campaign that has left more than 1,200 Iranians dead. Iran launched retaliatory attacks on U.S. military bases and allies in the region, killing seven U.S. service members and injuring at least 140 others.
Trump administration officials have refused to give a final timeline for the war. President Trump told reporters on March 9 that the plan was “very complete” and would end “soon,” but he did not elaborate on when it would end.
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a press conference the following day: “Today is yet another day of the heaviest attacks on Iranian soil.”
The Pentagon declined further comment on the cost of the war.
The first days of the war cost about $1 billion a day
Based on media reports, Democrats, including Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, say the war costs are about $1 billion per day. In the first 100 hours of the war, the U.S. military burned an estimated $891.4 million per day, for a total of $3.7 billion, according to a cost analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“I’ve heard the $1 billion per day number,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told USA TODAY, adding that he could not fully confirm its veracity.
“I’ve asked this question before, but Pentagon officials have avoided it. They haven’t said anything about the cost, so I’m not holding my breath,” he added.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) told reporters on March 10, before entering a secret briefing with military leaders, “15 million Americans without health care don’t have money, but we have $1 billion a day to bomb Iran.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Hill’s leading war hardliners, said the reported $1 billion per day cost of the Iran war was “the highest cost ever spent.”
“What’s the value to America in defeating a religious Nazi regime that’s trying to build nuclear weapons to deliver to America? That’s a really good investment,” he said on Fox News on March 8.
The $11.3 billion spent on munitions early in the war exceeds the $7.4 billion Congress appropriated for the National Cancer Institute. And that’s about the same amount as the $12.4 billion Congress appropriated for Head Start, the preschool program widely used by low-income children across the country.
Munitions account for most of the cost
The CSIS report estimates that most of the cost of the 100-hour war, or about $3.1 billion of the $3.7 billion, was in the value of depleted munitions.
Now that Iran’s air defenses are weakened, the daily cost is likely to decline as the U.S. military moves from firing the expensive weapons it used in the first few days to attack Iran to dropping free-falling bombs, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser in the center’s defense security division who co-authored the report.
“The costs were very high in the first few days,” Cancian said. He added that in the future the cost “will probably be halved” because “we are using much cheaper munitions.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, said on the fourth day of the war that the U.S. used more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition to hit about the same number of targets.
Gen. Dan Cain, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters on March 4 that the military is moving away from the use of “large, deliberate” weapons fired from beyond Iran’s defenses to “precision strikes” with weapons such as free-falling Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) and Hellfire missiles that hit targets up to 25 miles and six miles away, respectively.
These are much cheaper than the long-range weapons the U.S. military was firing at Iran in the first days of the war, such as the Tomahawk missiles, which cost about $3.6 million each, compared to JDAM’s $80,000 price tag, according to the CSIS report.
The United States also launched dozens of expensive Patriot and THAAD interceptor missiles in the first 100 hours of the war to ward off Iranian attacks targeting U.S. military bases and its allies in the region. The report found that defense weapons used during this period cost a total of more than $1.6 billion.
These costs could come down as the United States removes more of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers. Kaine told reporters on March 10 that Iranian ballistic missile attacks have “continued to trend down by 90%” since the start of the war, while unsolicited attack drone attacks have “dropped by 83%.”
However, the cost of operating the large U.S. Navy fleet stationed in the Middle East will steadily increase by about $15.4 million each day, the report notes.
Long-term costs can add up quickly
Heidi Peltier, a senior research fellow at Brown University’s War Costs Project, said the exact amount of war costs will “always be underestimated in some ways.”
Pelletier said if military attacks on Iran intensify, “the cost per weapon may go down, but the cost per day may not come down.”
Mr. Pelletier pointed out that the war was financed by loans that paid extra interest. Other costs, such as “obligations to veterans of this war” and the economic impact, will also be exacerbated in the future. Some of this is already clear, as the conflict threatens to engulf the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route.
Pelletier said past precedent regarding U.S. wars in the Middle East suggests the final price could dwarf current estimates.
The initial cost of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was estimated at about $50 billion to $60 billion, but they ended up costing a total of $8 trillion, according to a cost-of-war analysis.
Speaking on the Senate floor on March 11, 12 days into the Iran war, Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, cited reports that President Trump could request “potentially more than $50 billion” in emergency funding for the war.
The day before, Mr. Reed sent a letter to Mr. Hegseth asking the Trump administration to provide Congress with more information about the cost of the war per day, how much additional funding the military may request to support troops in the region, and when Mr. Hegseth plans to request it.
“The American people have a right to know how much this war is costing them in blood and treasure,” he wrote.
