On September 14, 2026, the Defense Department's inspector general released its first report on the war with Iran. Its central finding on weapons: “The munitions expenditure on OEF has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply.” OEF is the report's abbreviation for the operation.
The report put the war's cost at roughly $33.4 billion, including $22.3 billion in expended munitions, $3.7 billion in equipment losses and $7.4 billion in other expenditures, a figure NBC News noted does not include repairing damaged facilities. Iranian strikes “damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.” According to The Independent, the report lists four F-15Es and up to 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones destroyed and an F-35A damaged; outlets' counts of damaged tanker aircraft differ. Damage to U.S. diplomatic facilities in the region came to roughly $184 million. The war displaced more than 20,000 U.S. military and diplomatic personnel, and with logistics moved to Diego Garcia, resupply cycles stretched to 14 to 18 days. NBC News called the report one of the first government confirmations that Iran targeted the Navy's main logistics hub in the region, in Bahrain.
The findings landed the same day Trump posted that the United States is “producing more Exquisite and Elite Weapons than at any time in our History. They are being delivered on a daily basis to our Forces in the Middle East and beyond.” About two weeks earlier he had written that the country has “virtually unlimited amounts of Mid to High Grade Ammunition, far more than we could ever use for this, or for any other War.” Pete Hegseth has denied reports of munitions shortages, NBC News reported.
The shortfall matters beyond Iran. Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told CBS News that the stockpile can sustain this war: “For a war against Iran, the answer is yes. The problem is a war against China. We might be able to provide enough munitions for a month, but getting on to month two or month three or four, that's a great challenge.” (See New York Times: The Iran War Has Drained U.S. Weapons Stockpiles Below the Level Needed to Confront a Near-Peer Adversary, at a Cost Nearing $1 Billion a Day, A Congressional Research Service Tally Puts Trump's Iran War Losses at Up to 42 Aircraft and 13 U.S. Troops Killed, as Officials Privately Put the Cost Near $50 Billion and Acting Navy Secretary Says Iran 'Blew the Hell Out of Bahrain' as the Navy Weighs the Future of Its Middle East Headquarters.)
Update (September 16, 2026): a senior Pentagon official told The Center Square the inspector general “did not have access to all relevant information.” A day after the inspector general's report, the Congressional Budget Office released its own estimate: $38.1 billion in Pentagon costs through August 1, with the U.S. having “probably used between one-half and two-thirds” of its missile defense interceptors since June 2025. CBO said the Pentagon did not respond to its requests for information (see Congressional Budget Office Estimates the Iran War Cost the Pentagon $38.1 Billion Through August and Used Up to Two-Thirds of U.S. Missile Interceptors).
On September 15, CBS News published undated ground-level photos, sent by active-duty service members who asked not to be named, showing a destroyed E-3 radar plane and gutted buildings at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia and destroyed trailers at Camp Buehring in Kuwait. Some of the damage had been reported in March. “This is major damage to our bases that hasn't been communicated to the American public,” one service member told CBS, adding, “These are not 'squirters' getting through,” a reference to Defense Secretary Hegseth's description of an earlier attack (see Army Survivors Flatly Contradict Hegseth on the Kuwait Attack, Saying Deaths Were 'Absolutely' Preventable and the Unit Was 'Unprepared'). The Pentagon did not respond to CBS. Days earlier, on September 10, asked by NewsNation about a CBS report that an Iranian strike on an air base in Jordan had damaged U.S. aircraft, Trump said, “None whatsoever. No damage. No nothing.” CBS, citing people with direct knowledge, had reported an A-10 lost a wing and about eight F-15s sustained light damage.