U.S. Navy sailors service a fighter jet on the flight deck of the USS George Washington in the Arabian Sea on September 11, 2026.
Ed Ou | Reuters
As of late June, Iranian airstrikes had damaged or destroyed “dozens” of U.S. military aircraft, as well as “hundreds of buildings and structures” on U.S. military bases in the Middle East, according to a government report.
The cost of the Iran war was estimated at $33.4 billion as of June 29, according to the Pentagon, which released to Congress on Monday the Chief Inspector General’s Report on the Iran War, which tracked the conflict through the end of June. This includes $184 million in physical damage caused by Iranian attacks to US diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
It said U.S. military spending during the conflict “has resulted in strategic inventory shortages and exposed bottlenecks in the industrial base in resupplying munitions.”
President Donald Trump posted before the report’s release that the United States is “producing more sophisticated and elite weapons than at any time in our nation’s history.”
The report indicates that the fifth-generation F-35A was damaged by enemy fire, marking the first time the type of aircraft has sustained combat damage. As of the end of June, four F-15E fighters and one A-10 ground attack aircraft had been destroyed.
According to the U.S. Air Force, the F-35A costs $92 million each, while the F-15E cost $31.1 million in 1998.
Seven KC-135 tanker planes were damaged or destroyed, and seven helicopters and more than 30 drones were lost.
