Inside the Democratic quest to learn the actual cost of the Iran war

It was an answer Democrats had long sought — but not one they believed.

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Last week, more than two months after the U.S. first launched its attack on Iran, a top Pentagon official finally offered Congress an estimate for the cost of the war so far, pinning it at $25 billion.

That estimate was quickly dismissed by Democrats as not realistic.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said $25 billion is “lowballing it.” Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., dismissed the figure as an “undercounting.” And Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said the Pentagon’s number was in all likelihood “way too low.” 

Now, as the war stretches into its third month, Democrats are still trying to find out exactly what the price tag is for what President Donald Trump has dubbed a “little excursion” in the Middle East. 

Many are frustrated with what they see as an administration eager to obfuscate. And some Democrats admit they may not get a straight answer anytime soon.

Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told MS NOW that the Trump administration has withheld more information from Congress regarding defense spending than any administration he has worked with since taking office in 2011. 

“This administration is uniquely unresponsive,” Blumenthal said. “This administration has stonewalled unlike any other I have seen, which has frustrated not only Democrats but our Republican colleagues.”

Blumenthal said he asked for a cost estimate in each of the three classified Pentagon briefings about the war but — prior to last week’s public hearings — had not received an update since the early days of conflict, when the Pentagon pegged the cost up to that point at more than $11 billion.

“It’s truly maddening that they have been so unresponsive,” Blumenthal said.

Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, an Iraq War vet who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, shared Blumenthal’s frustration, saying it is “pathetic” but “not surprising” that the Trump administration is “not being straightforward.”

Ryan argued Americans are facing, courtesy of the White House, an “unprecedented level of lies and deception around this war, even compared to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Ryan told MS NOW it will likely take Democrats winning back control of the U.S. House and — with it — subpoena power to “get a full 100% reckoning” of what has happened in Iran, including the cost. But, he says, “we can’t wait that long.”

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In the interim, sources told MS NOW that congressional Democrats are instead relying on open source data, public reporting and satellite imagery to get a better sense of the war’s potential price tag.

A congressional official with knowledge of the effort to track Iran war spending said far more damage has been done to U.S. bases, for example, than the Pentagon has publicly revealed. 

“That is a lowball estimate that does not account for battle damage and other costs,” the official told MS NOW of the $25 billion figure. “But until DOD submits its costs, we just have to guess from public reporting.”

Ryan told MS NOW that Democrats on the Armed Services Committee estimate that the cost so far is likely double what the administration is saying — “probably $40 [billion] to $50 billion, and counting.”

Democrats on both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have sent formal requests to the Pentagon asking for cost estimate breakdowns. 

MS NOW reached out to the Republican chairs of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees to ask if they believed the $25 billion figure. Neither responded.

In addition to collating open source data, Democrats are looking at different legislative tools to get their arms around the price tag — but that could take time.

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For instance, just days after the first U.S. strikes, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee sent a request to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, asking that they put together an official estimate of the financial and economic impacts of the war. 

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In his letter, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., asked the CBO to examine not just the direct costs of military action, but also the potential indirect costs, including the foreign aid the U.S. may need to distribute in the region and the rise in consumer prices domestically. 

It’s not clear when, or if, the CBO may offer an assessment. 

Democrats argue it should not be this difficult for Congress to get answers out of the administration about Pentagon spending — and say past administrations have been more forthcoming.

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Records show that over the past decade, the House Budget Committee has regularly hosted top Defense Department officials — under both Democratic administrations and during the first Trump White House — to testify about the Pentagon’s budget. That has not happened during the current Trump term. 

The reluctance to come before Congress is all the more notable as the White House is in the process of asking lawmakers to approve $1.5 trillion in Pentagon spending for the upcoming year — a more than 40% increase year over year. And it remains unclear if the Trump administration may ask for additional funding on top of that to cover costs associated with the war.

Boyle, who called the administration’s $25 billion figure “almost certainly a lowball,” said he “will not support another blank check for an endless war of choice in the Middle East without a clear strategy, a real justification, and full transparency.”

“Americans want their tax dollars used to lower costs here at home — not poured into another reckless war with no end in sight,” Boyle wrote in a statement to MS NOW. 

The vague war price tag — coupled with the massive 2027 Pentagon funding request — has given Democrats a new plank in their midterm “affordability” line of attack against the White House and Republicans. 

Democrats are expected to continue to pound the drum about the cost of the conflict, especially the trickle-down effects back home, such as higher gas and grocery prices.

Ryan introduced a bill on Tuesday— co-signed by the top Democrats on the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees — barring the use of additional taxpayer dollars for military action against Iran absent congressional authorization for the war or an official declaration of war.

Ryan told MS NOW that his constituents were already concerned about the cost of living, and the war has only compounded that.

“There’s a very clear date and event around which this changed, which was February 28 and the initiation of this war,” Ryan said. 

“So,” he added, “reminding people where the accountability lies is the goal.”

Kevin Frey

Kevin Frey is a congressional reporter for MS NOW.

David Rohde

David Rohde is a senior national security reporter for MS NOW. A two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, he previously worked for NBC News, the New Yorker, Reuters, the New York Times and the Christian Science Monitor.