President Donald Trump’s war in Iran has cost $25 billion so far, according to the Pentagon.
A senior Defense Department official on Wednesday gave what is the first official price tag for the bombardment in the Middle East.
Assistant Secretary of the Army Jules Hurst is currently acting Under Secretary of Defense and appeared before the House Armed Services Committee to answer questions.
During the appearance on Capitol Hill, he revealed that the majority of that expenditure had come from spent ammunition, saying, “approximately at this day we are spending about $25 billion on Operation Epic Fury. Most of that is in munitions, part of that is obviously OMN (operations and maintenance), and equipment replacement.”
Ranking House Armed Services Committee Democrat Adam Smith said, “I’m glad you answered that question. Because we’ve been asking for a hell of a long time, and no one’s given us the number.”
It was not clear whether this included paying for damages to base infrastructure. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that questions remain about the total, given that a source told it the first six days of the war had cost the U.S. at least $11.3 billion.
The war began on Feb. 28, and has so far led to the death of 13 U.S. service members, injured hundreds more, left thousands dead in Iran, and led to much of the world’s oil supply getting trapped in the Strait of Hormuz.
Six months out from the midterms, Republicans will need to find ways to hold onto their majorities in the House and the Senate, despite Trump having spent roughly the equivalent of 300,000 American households’ annual income on the bloodletting.
Meanwhile, Democrats are in a strong position across all major polls and are expected to lean heavily into cost-of-living concerns.
Hurst’s boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, was also on the Hill this week.
During his appearance, he struck a more combative tone, attacking what he described as “reckless, feckless, and defeatist” Democratic lawmakers.
“What would you pay to ensure Iran does not get a nuclear bomb? What would you pay?” he asked.
“You call it a quagmire, handing propaganda to our enemies? Shame on you for that statement.”
Meanwhile, the big word Democrats are pushing ahead of the midterms is “affordability.”
Trump has long railed against the term, mocking it and describing it as a “con job.”
Speaking at an event with outgoing Hungarian president Viktor Orbán at the White House in November, Trump said: “Affordability, they call it—it was a con job by the Democrats.
“The Democrats are good at two things: cheating on elections and conning people on facts that weren’t true.”
Meanwhile, a CBS News/YouGov poll earlier this month found that most Americans oppose the war. It found that 68 percent of respondents were worried, 57 percent were stressed, and 54 percent were angry.
The White House directed the Daily Beast to the Defense Department, which in turn referred it to the testimony in Congress.
