Iran strikes damaged, destroyed hundreds of US bases across Middle East, cost $33.4b, Pentagon says

The report reveals that, simply totaling up munitions and equipment losses, the US has lost over $33.4 billion from the war, numbers which US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have tried to deny or keep under wraps for months.

In addition, while the report does not specifically finger former CENTCOM chief Gen. Erik Kurilla, who served from 2022 to August 2025, or current CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper, who has served since then, Kurilla's predecessor, Gen. Frank McKenzie, in 2024 warned that "the United States will not be able to maintain these bases in a full-throated conflict, because they will be rendered unusable by sustained Iranian attack."

It appears that neither of his successors nor the US military or political class in general took these worries seriously enough to alter America's basing strategy, though officials did evacuate most American forces from the region, avoiding mass casualties.

In fact, the report said that the war had displaced over 20,000 US military and diplomatic personnel with 5,000 flights from bases in Europe, despite Trump’s complaints that Europeans failed to support America during the war.

The US-Iran conflict also caused a munitions shortfall and supply-chain bottlenecks at the Pentagon, the US Defense Department's Inspector-General said, poking another hole in claims by Trump and Hegseth that the American military's munitions capabilities have not been sidelined by the war.

The report says the war with Iran has cost the US about $33.4 billion, including $22.3 billion in expended munitions, $3.7 billion for equipment losses, and $7.4 billion in other expenditures.

However, the calculations don’t account for repairing damaged US facilities in the region, replacing aircraft, and replenishing critical weaponry, it added.

The Pentagon is “working to streamline procurement processes and production lead times, and to stockpile critical materials, components, and selected munitions to respond rapidly to a contingency,” with the Trump administration working to replenish weaponry.

According to the report, the CIA has lost significant facilities due to Iranian attacks.

Some reports suggest that this has been the largest blow to CIA operations in the region in many years, with unpredictable consequences for how effective American intelligence will be in certain areas for the near future.

The State Department also sustained damage in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, according to the report, including $184 million in damages to “diplomatic facilities.”

The report covers the period from the start of the war on February 28 through June 30.

The findings come amid other reports of low morale among US troops in the Middle East, a depletion of key munitions, and extensive damage to US military and intelligence assets.

The report is also one of the first government confirmations that Iran targeted the US Navy’s logistics hub in Bahrain, one of its main hubs in the region, with drones and ballistic missiles.

Damage to military equipment, aircraft, and other material is also delineated in the report.

The findings say that at least 30 large US drones were destroyed during the war.

Damage to military aircraft includes four F-15E jet fighters, an F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, an A-10 Warthog, 12 KC-135 refuelers, and nine other aircraft.

Speaking about the harm to the US bases on June 29 at a Jewish Institute for National Security of America briefing, McKenzie said that, "US basing in the Middle East…is a product of many years of development and different priorities when those bases went in…when CENTCOM was first stood up ... we were really looking at ways to prevent the Russians from coming south into the oil fields, and so our strategic thinking over that period of time reflected that."

He then discussed basing strategy being directed toward threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, but then added that today, “No one in their right mind would ever put the CENTCOM forward headquarters, you know, 100 miles away from Iran."

"Yet that's where it is, because when we put it in place many years ago…we were thinking about other things, and not the growing threat from Iran. ... It's bad to be close to your potential enemy, because he has the ability to strike you very quickly, and a couple of minutes is all the warning time you're going to get for some of these bases," he continued.

Further, he said, “Iranian drones have been very effective. We knew that they were coming when I left active duty, and in '22 we certainly saw the threat of drones in the region. I said in testimony before I retired that I felt we had lost effective air supremacy and even air superiority to some degree in Central Command, because of the ubiquity of drones."

“We need to look at basing in Israel. I think it's a great idea. You need to look at basing [in] western Saudi Arabia. You might need to look at Oman. You need to continue to look at Jordan. You might talk to Egypt. But with all of these countries, one thing that's significant is they all will have access, basing, and overflight (ABO) issues. They're going to want to have a say in where those jets go when they take off…Obviously, Israel is the place where you're going to have the fewest ABO restrictions ...Israeli bases are [also] going to be very well defended against ballistic missiles and against drones,” he said.

Moreover, McKenzie stated, “If you can see it, you can strike it. Things like that beautiful CENTCOM command post at Al Udeid [Air Base in Qatar] is a Maginot Line. It has the same relevance to warfare today as the Maginot Line did in the Second World War: a monument to old thinking. We need to be able to move. We need to be able to [use deception] about where our locations are, and that's going to require not only significant electromagnetic emanation management, it's going to require an understanding of what's in space."

"The Department of War’s Office of Inspector General is an independent entity who conducted their own outside investigation and did not have access to all relevant information and reports," the Pentagon said in response to the Post's request for comment on Tuesday.

"We do not agree with their findings, and any report that suggests that the United States’ munitions are depleted are completely false," the senior Pentagon official added.

"The US military remains the strongest and most capable fighting force in the world. We possess the full range of capabilities needed to project power and strike decisively whenever and wherever the president directs." the statement concluded.

Neither CENTCOM nor the CIA has responded to requests for comment.