Pentagon says Operation Epic Fury costs $25 billion, real bill may be $50 billion

Operation Epic Fury’s first public price tag may have captured only half the bill. Acting Pentagon comptroller Jules Hurst III told the House Armed Services Committee that the campaign had cost about $25 billion so far, with most of that money going to ordnance and munitions.

Hurst delivered the figure on April 29 during testimony on the Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion FY2027 budget request, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine. By then, the conflict was nearing its 60-day mark, and lawmakers were already treating the war as more than a battlefield question. It had become a test of how honestly the administration was accounting for the military burden it was asking Congress to absorb.

But internal assessments painted a far larger picture. U.S. officials familiar with the Pentagon’s calculations told CBS News on April 30 that the true cost of the Iran war was closer to $50 billion so far, roughly double the public figure. That higher estimate included damaged or destroyed equipment and U.S. military installations that had not been fully counted in the $25 billion figure. Much of the gap, officials said, reflected munitions already fired and now needing replacement, along with repair costs that were left outside the initial tally.

The difference has turned the accounting itself into a flashpoint on Capitol Hill. Reuters said the $25 billion estimate was the first official public price tag for the military campaign, and Democrats were moving quickly to tie the unpopular war to affordability concerns ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The dispute is not just over bookkeeping. It goes to the core of whether Congress and taxpayers were shown the real financial burden of a war that is already consuming billions in munitions, equipment and repairs, with the final bill likely to climb as the campaign continues.