Iran war cost US $38bn and significantly depleted missile stockpile, report finds

Damaging budget report estimates cost would grow $3bn per month and stockpile could take five years to rebuild

The war in Iran has cost the US at least $38bn and left its stockpile of defensive missiles so depleted it could take five years to rebuild, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found, in a damaging report less than two months before midterm elections where the war and the cost of living crisis will likely hurt Republicans at the polls.

The economic report comes one day after the Pentagon’s inspector general finally released its own first review of the war, saying that the US spent $22.3bn on munitions alone through 30 June, put total spending at $33.4bn and found the fighting had “resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply”.