US has spent $25bn on Iran war so far – Pentagon

Pentagon officials said the Iran war had cost $25 billion so far, offering the estimate in a contentious congressional hearing that saw US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth trade barbs with Democrats over the administration’s handling of the conflict.

Hegseth told the House Armed Services Committee that the cost was worth it to make sure Iran didn’t obtain a nuclear weapon, even as Democrats said the figure underestimated the huge cost to US taxpayers.

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The hearing – meant to discuss the administration’s unprecedented $1.5 trillion defence budget request, a 44% increase – offered lawmakers their first public opportunity to question Pentagon leaders on the conflict launched by the US and Israel against Iran on 28 February.

Democratic lawmakers cast the conflict as a costly war of choice that President Donald Trump blundered into without a clear plan.

Hegseth lashed out at them even before questioning began, striking a defiant tone with the lawmakers whose support he’ll need to approve the budget request.

Pete Hegseth, US secretary of defence, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday, 29 April 2026. The hearing is set to examine the Department of Defence 2027 budget request. Image: Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg

“The biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,” Hegseth said.

California Democrat John Garamendi called Trump’s “war of choice” against Iran a “geostrategic calamity” and a “strategic blunder”. Hegseth shot back that “your hatred for President Trump blinds you to the truth of the success of this mission”.

“Who are you pulling for?” Hegseth asked.

The conflict has shut a vital Persian Gulf waterway for oil and gas tankers, raised global energy prices and frayed US alliances in Europe, with Trump now trying to pressure Iran to negotiate an end to the war with a US naval blockade.

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The $25 billion figure offered by the Pentagon raised questions, given the huge cost of missiles and bombs expended in Iran, the ongoing naval blockade, as well as damage to US installations and the destruction of equipment.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, previously told Bloomberg Television that “$2 billion a day” was likely a “low-ball figure”. The Pentagon estimated the first two days of the war cost $5.6 billion in munitions alone, The Washington Post has reported.

“The real cost of the Iran war is likely to be much higher and this is an undershoot,” said Bloomberg Economics defence lead Becca Wasser.

In his statement, Hegseth also reiterated attacks on US allies for not pitching in on the war, warning there would be “consequences”.

He singled out the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) for what he called an “unconscionable” failure to help US forces. “We will remember,” he said in his written statement.

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The House Armed Services Committee’s senior Democrat, Washington’s Adam Smith, called the administration’s budget request “hopelessly unrealistic” and accused Hegseth of “gratuitously” insulting US allies and “going it alone” in Iran.

“What is the plan to achieve our objectives? We’ve seen the costs,” Smith said.

Ahead of midterm elections, where cost of living issues loom large, Republican lawmakers are reluctant to attempt selling constituents on a $440 billion increase in defence spending that could come at the expense of popular social programmes.

Hegseth has denied that the war has depleted US stockpiles of high-tech missiles and bombs.

Yet one of the reasons cited for such a big boost in defence spending involves replenishing the munitions that have been in heavy demand during the war – and used in the defence of Israel last year, when Iran retaliated for the bombing of its nuclear facilities.

Read: Trump extends Iran ceasefire, keeps blockade as talks falter

“Our global munitions stockpiles are low and we lack the capacity to rapidly restock magazine depth,” Representative Mike Rogers, the committee’s Republican chairman, said in an opening statement that portrayed the record defence budget as a reversal of decades of underinvestment.

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