Hegseth Clocks Iran War Cost At $37.5 Billion, But Analysts Think The Number Is Way Higher

The Iran War may have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $100 billion, according to expert estimates provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

When including damage to U.S. bases and equipment in the region, the Iran War could cost more than $100 billion, according to one expert estimate. However, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the war has only cost approximately $37.5 billion since it started on Feb. 28 during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday.

“I think Pete Hegseth has lied to Congress about the cost of the Iran War,” the cofounder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, Stephen Semler, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s already the most disliked war in history, according to my own analysis of polling data dating back to World War II. So I think, and the administration has gone really far out of its way to hide the costs of the war, even the direct costs I’m talking about, from the American public.”

Semler estimated that the cost of the Iran War is likely around $112.3 billion as of Tuesday, 145 days into the war. He has not yet published the breakdown of this estimate.

The war resumed on July 7 after the Trump administration accused Iran of violating a June memorandum of understanding by attacking commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. The United States has since carried out repeated strikes across Iran, including a 13th consecutive night of attacks Friday, while Tehran has retaliated against U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Iraq, Reuters reported.

“There’s no single way to take his estimate seriously, especially because he said the war cost under 40 billion, but then he said that at a hearing in which he was justifying the administration’s request for $72 billion worth of Iran War funding, including $67 billion for Hegseth’s own department,” Semler told the DCNF. “I don’t even know how to describe it really at this point … It just seems like brazen lying at this point.”

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Totally Implausible’

It wouldn’t be abnormal for the U.S. government to hide the war’s true cost, one expert says.

“To understand the government’s habit of lowballing the cost of wars, consider the war in Iraq,” Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, told the DCNF. “In the Iraq War, the cost estimates initially submitted by the Bush administration were around $200 billion. That war ended up costing $5 trillion, 25 times the original estimate. Using that multiple, if the war winds down rather quickly, we are looking at a final direct cost of the Iran war in the neighborhood of at least $1 trillion.”

Money is not the only thing that the Iran War has cost the United States; 18 U.S. servicemembers have been killed and over 500 have been wounded, Reuters reported, citing an anonymous statement from a U.S. official.

“I see Pete Hegseth come up with this number that’s just totally implausible, absurd, really,” Semler told the DCNF. “After I’ve gone through all that work, and it just like makes my eyes roll to the back of my head. And worse yet, you have media outlets just basically treating it as the prevailing estimate.”

“$37.5 billion is nowhere [near] the full cost of the Iran war,” Ben Freeman, the director of Democratizing Foreign Policy at The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told the DCNF. “Even the Pentagon’s own Comptroller admits this number doesn’t account for enormous costs, like the damage done to U.S. military bases and equipment in the region. Independent estimates by people that aren’t funded by the Pentagon or its contractors put the current costs much higher.”

The White House referred to Hegseth’s statements on Tuesday during the Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.

“Congress should insist that Secretary Hegseth manage the Pentagon budget in the same way as all other departments manage a budget,” Allison McManus, a managing director for the National Security and International Policy department at American Progress, told the DCNF. “Congress should remember that this is not a war that Iran brought to the United States, but one that Secretary Hegseth and President Trump embarked on with full knowledge of the resources available. That they could not achieve success within those constraints does not mean that the American taxpayer should pick up their bill.”

“Congress has, at best, the most tenuous grasp on Uncle Sam’s war of choice in Iran,” Hanke told the DCNF. “Indeed, the U.S. Congress has essentially turned a blind eye to this great misadventure. In my wildest dreams, I can’t imagine that they would look into the details related to funding the war.”

Munitions Crunch

The Iran War is not only depleting U.S. financial resources. Key munition stockpiles, such as interceptor missiles, that were already running low due to the Russo-Ukrainian War have been depleted even further.

The U.S. military used somewhere between 45% and 61% of its Patriot missiles between Feb. 28 and April 21, according to a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report.

Somewhere between 1,060 and 1,430 of the 2,330 Patriot missiles in the stockpile were expended during that time period.

Notably, this report is from several months ago. The current Patriot missile stockpiles are likely even further depleted than these outdated statistics; however, current data on the depletion of these munitions is not publicly available.

“The costs will continue to mount as long as operations continue,” McManus told the DCNF. “Even if operations are less frequent and intense than the initial days of the war, the costs of forward deployments, reserve deployments, the cost of munitions, potential damages, and ever-increasing costs of fuel (which is obviously necessary to run sorties and keep naval assets in the region) will add up day after day. Without knowing exactly the nature of missions from day to day, it’s hard to estimate a per-day amount, but guessing that the war could cost around $500 million or even $1 billion a day is not out of the question.”

“These costs are reasonable given the type of high-intensity combat that is being conducted,” Heritage Foundation Visiting Fellow and former Pentagon official Steven Bucci told the DCNF. “The major tools being used are A/C and stand-off munitions. They are expensive to maintain and use. The costs will depend on the length of the operation.”

The depletion of munitions in the Iran War could weaken the position of the U.S. military in Asia, as well.

“We’re consistently told that the reason for these historic Pentagon budget increases is so we’re ready to counter China,” Freeman told the DCNF. “Yet, at the same time, this administration is waging a misguided war with Iran that has decimated our readiness for a conflict with China. We’re dangerously low on many munitions, sustainment pipelines are strained, and we’re canceling trainings because of the Iran war. All of this makes us less, not more, safe. So, if you’re actually worried about China, you should be against the Iran war.”

Freeman pointed out that all of these expenses will be stacked on top of the exorbitant U.S. national debt.

“We’re paying for this war, and any additional Pentagon funding, with Uncle Sam’s credit card,” Freeman told the DCNF. “The U.S. is on track to rack up a $2 trillion budget deficit this year, which is adding to our enormous $40 trillion national debt. Just the interest we’re paying on the debt is now more than we’re spending on the military every year. So, any time we waste money on foreign wars, we’re only adding to this ticking time-bomb.”

One expert pointed out another angle of the rising cost of the Iran War, such as veterans benefits for service members injured in the conflict.

“The Pentagon’s estimates also generally exclude future indirect taxpayer costs, such as veterans’ benefits, additional interest on debt-financed spending, and more,” Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, told the DCNF.

Murphy also noted that this war is currently unauthorized by Congress, with President Donald Trump acting unilaterally.

“Congress never authorized this war with Iran and it is far past the 60-day period during which the president contends he can legally continue hostilities,” Murphy told the DCNF. “Lawmakers should demand an actual strategy and plan to end this war. The Pentagon has enough cash to cover the costs for the near-term. After the end of the war, the Pentagon can send a detailed request for additional funding to replenish munitions that Congress can consider.”

Both congressional chambers passed an Iran war powers resolution in June, while a second House measure passed 214-208 on July 23. A parallel Senate effort failed 49-47.

“The longer the conflict goes on, the more costs rise,” Freeman told the DCNF. “If the conflict goes through the end of the year and if we escalate our involvement–by putting boots on the ground in Iran, for example–you could easily see costs soar into the hundreds of billions of dollars.”