A report by a nonpartisan research organization found that it could take up to five years to replenish depleted ammunition stockpiles.
Published September 16, 2026
The United States’ war against Iran is exacerbating inflation and straining the country’s military stockpile, a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found.
The cost of the six-month war has reached $38 billion and is expected to rise by $3 billion each month, according to a report released Tuesday. The war is expected to increase inflation by 0.5 percentage point in the first three months of 2027.
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“President Donald Trump’s disastrous Iran war has already claimed the lives of brave American service members and injured others,” said Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, which commissioned the investigation.
“Beyond the human cost, this bipartisan CBO report makes clear that this war has cost American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, and that number continues to rise.”
The report was released as the Trump administration faces growing criticism over the unpopular war that the United States and Israel launched in February. The conflict has disrupted global energy markets and contributed to rising prices as voters express concerns about the cost of living ahead of November’s midterm elections.
CBO’s estimate is consistent with an estimate by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who estimated the cost of the war at $37.5 billion in Congressional testimony in July. Hegseth called on Congress to approve a major increase in the US military budget, which is already the largest in the world by a wide margin.
The Pentagon chief also slammed critics of the war in heated testimony and denied that the conflict, which President Trump had originally expected to last weeks, was turning into a “quagmire.”
The report also finds that the war has depleted supplies of key U.S. military supplies, straining the military’s ability to meet commitments in other parts of the world. The CBO report estimates that it could take up to five years to replenish the U.S. ammunition stockpile.
The report does not include borrowing costs related to wars or Iranian attacks that have hit U.S. military facilities in the Middle East.
The Trump administration angrily denied reports that the military stockpile was flagged and continued to insist that the war was worth the sacrifice.
“With the temporary exception of oil, prices have fallen precipitously, and as soon as the military conflict with Iran ends, oil will drop like a rock, and it won’t last long,” President Trump said in a social media post Monday.
The CBO announcement comes a day after a report on the war by the Pentagon’s inspector general, a government watchdog, detailed the loss of dozens of U.S. military aircraft during the war, as well as munitions shortages and production bottlenecks.
In response to reports of munitions shortages, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said: “We have everything we need to strike at the time and place of the president’s choosing.”
