While the Pentagon publicly clings to a $30 billion price tag for its war against Iran, internal Defense Department assessments (unsurprisingly) paint a far more staggering picture: the true cost is rapidly closing in on the $80 billion to $100 billion range, according to NBC News.
The Pentagon's Office of Management and Budget told Congress on June 30 that US military operations against Iran so far is $30 billion: "We’ve spent about $30 billion," OMB Director Russel Vought told the House Appropriations Committee.
NBC's new assessment bluntly states the following, however: "The cost of the war with Iran could be more than triple the most recent estimate of roughly $30 billion, according to three U.S. officials and three people familiar with the internal cost estimates."
The lower figure was reportedly initially floated based a classic Washington accounting trick which only evaluates the cost of expended missiles and munitions while conveniently ignoring the charred remnants of American hardware and damaged bases littering the Gulf states after Iranian retaliatory attacks, the report explains.
The estimate featured in the NBC report accounts for actually rebuilding those installations previously attacked by Iran. Judging by how things are going this week - after five consecutive days of renewed fighting - the final bill from damage will only keep pushing up from here.
It has been well documented that while American troops at Gulf bases across the Strait of Hormuz and Persian Gulf were by and large pulled back from near 'front lines' - large US military assets like refueling tankers were in some cases left behind, resulting in scenes like the following:
"Five U.S. Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, according to two U.S. officials," The Wall Street Journal reported in mid-March. Each one costs hundreds of millions.
"The tankers were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Saudi base in recent days, the officials said," WSJ detailed at the time. "U.S. Central Command declined to comment. The tankers were damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired, one of the officials said. No one was killed in the strikes."
And in Bahrain, home of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, damage to military facilities is already estimated at $1 billion. Heavily fortified installations in Kuwait have also taken a severe beating, with both these tiny Arab Gulf states being favored targets of IRGC projectiles of late.
In the meantime, with a $1.5 trillion budget battle looming this autumn, the Pentagon is currently urging Congress to approve $68 billion supplemental funding package just to keep the lights on, but as the Iran war drags on with few clear objectives outlining an endgame, defense officials are hitting a wall of bipartisan skepticism among lawmakers.
One D.C. watchdog group, Public Citizen, has stated this week: "The American people are fed up with spending more on bombs and less on basic needs. And they are furious with a pointless, deadly, illegal, unconstitutional and protracted war that is costing lives and driving up gas prices."