US war on Iran has cost about $29bn, Pentagon says
The Pentagon revealed on 29 April that the US war on Iran had cost about $25bn for roughly two months of spending. Asked if there are any updated costs associated with the war as of today, Jules Hurst III, chief financial official for the Pentagon, said:
“At the time of testimony… it was $25 billion dollars. But the joint staff team and the comptroller are constantly looking at estimates and now we think it is closer to 29.”
“And that is because of updated repair and replacement of equipment costs and also just general operational costs to keep people in theatre,” he added.
The US defense secretary Pete Hegseth then said “we will share what we can” when it is “relevant and required” after being pressed on when more “formal accounting” on the costs of the war will be shared with Congress and the House appropriations committee’s defense subcommittee.
Key events
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Australia will join a “strictly defensive” mission led by France and Britain to secure shipping through the strait of Hormuz, defence minister Richard Marles said Wednesday.
Australia will contribute a Wedgetail E-7A surveillance aircraft, already deployed in the region to protect the United Arab Emirates from Iran drone attacks, Marles said after a meeting of 40 countries.
Australia stands ready to support an independent and strictly defensive Multinational Military Mission, led by the United Kingdom and France, once it is established,” Marles said in a statement.
The Trump administration’s claims that it has severely damaged Iran’s military capacity is counter to what US intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed door, the New York Times reports.
Classified assessments from early this month show that Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities, the Times reports.
The report also claims that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.
Kuwait said on Tuesday that Iran launched a failed attack earlier this month on an island where China is helping build a port in the Gulf Arab country.
The accusation came just hours before US president Donald Trump was to depart for Beijing on a high-stakes visit over the Iran war and other issues.
Trump said he would have a “long talk” about Iran with Chinese president Xi Jinping but said trade would be a bigger focus. As he left for the summit, Trump again threatened Iran if its leaders don’t reach an agreement on its nuclear program.
We have Iran very much under control,” Trump said. “We’re either going to make a deal or they’re going to be decimated. One way or the other, we win.”
Iranian state media quoted the country’s foreign ministry saying the allegations by Kuwait were “baseless”.
Israel continues to strike Lebanon as authorities report 380 people killed since ceasefire on 17 April
Further to my earlier post, Israel hammered south Lebanon with strikes on Tuesday ahead of talks between the two countries in Washington this week, as Beirut reported that Israeli attacks have killed 380 people since the 17 April ceasefire took effect.
Israel has intensified its attacks on south Lebanon, where it continues to trade fire with Hezbollah despite the ceasefire. Under the truce terms released by Washington, Israel reserved the right to act against “imminent threats”.
After Israeli strikes on Tuesday killed 13 people in the south, including two rescuers responding to an earlier raid in the city of Nabatieh and a wounded person they went to save, Lebanon’s health ministry decried Israel’s “complete disregard for all international norms”.
Lebanon’s health minister Rakan Nassereddine told a press conference on Tuesday that since the ceasefire, “380 people have been killed and 1,122 wounded”.
A ministry official told AFP that toll includes 39 women and 22 children.
Iran says US must accept its peace plan or face ‘failure’
Iran’s chief negotiator said on Tuesday that Washington must accept Tehran’s latest peace plan or face failure, after days of warnings from Donald Trump warned the truce is on the brink of collapse.
“There is no alternative but to accept the rights of the Iranian people as laid out in the 14-point proposal. Any other approach will be completely inconclusive; nothing but one failure after another,” Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said in a post on X.
The longer they drag their feet, the more American taxpayers will pay for it.
It comes as the Pentagon revealed that the cost of the war to the US had climbed to nearly $29bn – about $4bn higher than an estimate offered two weeks ago.
Asked how much the impact of the war on Americans’ personal finances factored into his thinking in negotiations with Iran, Donald Trump earlier told reporters on the White House lawn:
Americans’ financial situation … I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.
Lebanon says Israeli strikes in the south killed 13
Israeli strikes killed 13 people in southern Lebanon on Tuesday, including a soldier, a child and two rescue workers, the Lebanese health ministry said.
“A strike on the city of Nabatieh left five dead, including two Civil Defence rescuers,” the ministry said, while another strike in around Jebchit left four dead “including a soldier and a Syrian national” and a third strike in Bint Jbeil killed “four civilians, including a child and a woman”.
Earthquake of 4.6 magnitude hits Tehran, Iranian state media reports
We now have a few more details on the 4.6 magnitude earthquake that was reported in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Tuesday, via Iranian state media.
The quake was at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.21 miles), state media reported, citing the country’s seismological centre.
There was no immediate report of casualties or damage from the quake, which struck the border area between Tehran and Mazandaran.
There are now reports that the earthquake measured 4.6 in magnitude. We have yet to get details of any injuries or damage.
Iranian media has reported an earthquake in Tehran on Tuesday, without providing further details. I’ll bring you more on this as we get it.
Saudi Arabia launched covert attacks on Iran, Reuters reports
Saudi Arabia launched a number of unpublicised strikes on Iran in retaliation for attacks carried out in the kingdom during the war, two western officials briefed on the matter and two Iranian officials have told Reuters.
It marks the first time Saudi Arabia is known to have directly carried out military action on Iranian soil and shows the kingdom is becoming much bolder in defending itself against its main regional rival.
Launched by the Saudi Air Force, the attacks were assessed to have been carried out in late March, the two western officials said. One said only they were “tit-for-tat strikes in retaliation for when Saudi was hit”.
Reuters was unable to confirm what the specific targets were.
In response to a request for comment, a senior Saudi foreign ministry official did not address directly whether strikes had been carried out.
The Iranian foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn before departing for China, Donald Trump repeated his usual assertion that “Iran will not have a nuclear weapon”, before adding:
Iran will either do the right thing or we will finish the job.
The US president dodged a question from a reporter about whether he has a “red line” that would end the ceasefire, saying only: “Well, we’re going to see, and we’ll be thinking about it on the flight, and we’ll be thinking about it for the next little while.”
He insisted that Iran’s military has been defeated “very soundly”, and that the US blockade of Iranian ports has been “100% effective”.
And asked how much the impact of the war on Americans’ personal finances factored into his thinking in negotiations with Iran, Trump – astoundingly – replied:
Americans’ financial situation … I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.
He also repeated his usual line that, “As soon as this war is over, which will not be long, you’re going to see oil prices drop and you’re going to see a stock market … go through the roof.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Donald Trump said that he plans to talk to Chinese president Xi Jinping about the US’s ongoing war in Iran but downplayed its importance, saying:
“We’re going to have a long talk about it. I think he’s been relatively good, to be honest with you.”
He went to add:
“We have a lot of things to discuss. I wouldn’t say Iran is one of them, to be honest with you, because we have Iran very much under control.”
The high-stakes trip comes amid calls from secretary of state Marco Rubio and treasury secretary Scott Bessent towards Beijing to intervene and help reopen the Hormuz strait. In addition to 20% of the world’s crude oil flowing through the strait prior to the war, half of China’s crude oil passes through the critical chokehold.
Administration officials accompanying Donald Trump on Air Force 1 en route to China reportedly include:
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Secretary of state Marco Rubio
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Defense secretary Pete Hegseth
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US trade representative Jamieson Greer
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White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller
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White House deputy chief of staff James Blair
Others included in Trump’s entourage include his son Eric and Eric’s wife Lara, science advisor Michael Kratsios, as well as chief of protocol Monica Crowley.
At Pete Hegseth’s hearing before the US Senate appropriations defence subcommittee earlier, Republican Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, rejected the White House’s claim that the war was over.
“We still have 15,000 troops that are forward deployed, more than 20 warships and an active naval blockade,” she said. “In other words, it doesn’t appear that hostilities have ended.”
She asked Hegseth if the Trump administration planned to seek authorization from Congress to continue its war against Iran.
“Our view is that, should the president make the decision to recommence, that we would have all the authorities necessary to do so,” Hegseth said.
He added that the administration believes Donald Trump “has all the authorities he needs under Article II”.
A reminder that under Article II of the US constitution, presidents are permitted to launch attacks only in self-defence, in response to an immediate threat. Otherwise, Congress alone has the sole power to declare war. Trump has always claimed without evidence that Iran was planning to strike first and the US was therefore acting in “self-defence”.
Lebanese president Joseph Aoun has extended his condolences to the families of two paramedics killed in an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon.
“President General Aoun extended his deepest condolences to the families of the two martyrs and to the Civil Defense Department, praising the sacrifices made by its personnel in order to protect citizens and save lives under the most difficult circumstances,” Aoun’s office said in a statement.
It added that the attack was carried out “despite the announcement of a ceasefire” and that targeting humanitarian workers “constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and all humanitarian principles”.
Democratic senator Chris Murphy told Hegseth he feels the defence secretary is being “way to optimistic” about Iran potentially succumbing to economic pressure to reopen the strait of Hormuz.
Murphy warned spiralling gas prices from the ongoing closure of the strategic waterway were bankrupting farmers and families in the US.
He said to Hegseth:
I believe you are being way too optimistic in your assessment of their [Iran’s] potential to cave.
If this goes on for another 30 days, there are going to be thousands of more farms that will go bankrupt. There are going to be families that are going to be ruined. And so time is not on our side.
I just don’t believe that Iran is ready to capitulate yet.
Hegseth claimed the US controls the strait of Hormuz, despite the fact that the waterway has been effectively shut to shipping in more than two months of war.
Speaking at the Senate appropriations defence subcommittee hearing, Hegseth said:
“Ultimately we control the strait, because nothing’s going in that we don’t allow to go in. And, trust me, when we look at what Iran’s thinking about that, they know they can’t break it. And it’s very concerning for them.”
Back in Congress, defence secretary Pete Hegseth faced pushback from Republicans on the Trump administration’s straining of relations with longtime allies, particularly Nato.
Kentucky sentator Mitch McConnell, the Republican chair of the Senate appropriations defence subcommittee, told Hegseth that “Nato is the most important military alliance in world history”.
“It seems to me that a lot of the European countries think that we’re reducing our influence there, they’re sort of on their own,” McConnell said at a hearing today.
“And somehow American leadership is not essential to Nato going forward. I would argue that it certainly is essential for us to continue to be the leader.”
In an earlier House appropriations committee hearing, Oklahoma representative Tom Cole said: “America First has never meant American alone.”
The Republican chair of the House appropriations committee added: “American power is most effective when it’s exercised in concert with like-minded nations who share our interests and our values.”