Iranian strikes during the war damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan, according to a Pentagon Inspector General report mandated by the US Congress and released on Monday. The same report put the war’s cost to the US at about $33.4 billion. That figure included $22.3 billion in expended munitions, $3.7 billion for equipment losses and $7.4 billion in other expenditures. It did not account for repairing damaged US facilities in the region, replacing aircraft or replenishing critical weaponry. The machinery of war, as usual, left the bill with everyone else and then discovered the bill was larger than advertised.
The report said the conflict displaced over 20,000 US military and diplomatic personnel and required 5,000 flights from bases in Europe. It also said the war caused a munitions shortfall and supply-chain bottlenecks at the Pentagon. The CIA lost significant facilities due to Iranian attacks, and the State Department sustained damage in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, including $184 million in damages to diplomatic facilities. The report covered the period from the start of the war on February 28 through June 30. The state’s own apparatus took hits across the region, while the people living under it got the usual package: militarized skies, damaged infrastructure and another round of officials explaining why the system is still under control.
The State’s Forward Bases
The report said Iran targeted the US Navy’s logistics hub in Bahrain, one of its main hubs in the region, with drones and ballistic missiles. It said at least 30 large US drones were destroyed during the war. Damage to military aircraft included four F-15E jet fighters, an F-35A Joint Strike Fighter, an A-10 Warthog, 12 KC-135 refuelers and nine other aircraft. These are not abstract losses. They’re the hardware of a regional command structure built to project force, and they were treated as such by the report’s inventory of wreckage.
Former CENTCOM chief Gen. Frank McKenzie, quoted in the report, warned in 2024 that “the United States will not be able to maintain these bases in a full-throated conflict, because they will be rendered unusable by sustained Iranian attack.” Speaking at a Jewish Institute for National Security of America briefing on June 29, McKenzie said, “US basing in the Middle East…is a product of many years of development and different priorities when those bases went in…when CENTCOM was first stood up ... we were really looking at ways to prevent the Russians from coming south into the oil fields, and so our strategic thinking over that period of time reflected that.”
He added, “No one in their right mind would ever put the CENTCOM forward headquarters, you know, 100 miles away from Iran.” Then came the rest of the map of empire: “We need to look at basing in Israel. I think it's a great idea. You need to look at basing [in] western Saudi Arabia. You might need to look at Oman. You need to continue to look at Jordan. You might talk to Egypt. But with all of these countries, one thing that's significant is they all will have access, basing, and overflight (ABO) issues. They're going to want to have a say in where those jets go when they take off…Obviously, Israel is the place where you're going to have the fewest ABO restrictions ...Israeli bases are [also] going to be very well defended against ballistic missiles and against drones.”
McKenzie also said, “If you can see it, you can strike it. Things like that beautiful CENTCOM command post at Al Udeid [Air Base in Qatar] is a Maginot Line. It has the same relevance to warfare today as the Maginot Line did in the Second World War: a monument to old thinking. We need to be able to move. We need to be able to [use deception] about where our locations are, and that's going to require not only significant electromagnetic emanation management, it's going to require an understanding of what's in space.” The language is polished. The logic is simple. Keep the bases moving, keep the jets flying, keep the region arranged around military access.
Who Pays, Who Coordinates
The Pentagon said in response that the Department of War’s Office of Inspector General is an independent entity that conducted its own outside investigation and did not have access to all relevant information and reports. It said, “We do not agree with their findings, and any report that suggests that the United States’ munitions are depleted are completely false.” The statement added, “The US military remains the strongest and most capable fighting force in the world. We possess the full range of capabilities needed to project power and strike decisively whenever and wherever the president directs.” Neither CENTCOM nor the CIA responded to requests for comment.
China’s top diplomat urged Iran and the United States to show restraint and return to substantive talks, referencing the Islamabad memorandum as a framework for renewed diplomacy. The Reuters report said China called for a return to dialogue and restraint. The diplomatic language arrives, as it always does, after the damage has already been counted and the bases have already been hit.
Israeli officials also leaked details of a secret meeting in Germany among military commanders from the US, Israel and several Arab states to discuss the war against Iran, signaling ongoing high-level coordination against Iran. The leak pointed to continued behind-the-scenes military coordination among the countries involved. The public gets statements about restraint and talks. Behind the curtain, the commanders meet, the states coordinate, and the region stays locked inside the same armed architecture.
The report’s numbers tell the story better than the speeches do. $33.4 billion. Over 20,000 personnel displaced. 5,000 flights from Europe. At least 30 large drones destroyed. Four F-15E jet fighters, an F-35A, an A-10 Warthog, 12 KC-135 refuelers and nine other aircraft damaged. $184 million in diplomatic damage. That’s not a peace process. It’s a ledger from a system that keeps building bases, then acts surprised when the bases become targets.