“The [U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain] base and Fifth Fleet headquarters have been rendered largely inoperable for their original functions, with repairs estimated at $400 million… Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle and other senior defense officials stated that the Navy will not return to full normal operations at the Bahrain facility anytime soon…Because the Juffair surrounding area [to the U.S. Bahrain Navy facilities] is considered unsafe, [U.S. Navy] major logistical and port-call operations have been rerouted over 2,000 miles away to the Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia and other alternative hubs, causing significant resupply delays.”
That is an excerpt from a 19-page Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report titled, Estimating the Cost of Combat Operations Against Iran, sent to Congress September 15.
I read the now-seven-week-old CBO report last week, and was surprised at how much new-to-me information it contained about the early days of the Iran war, and particularly Tehran’s early destruction of U.S. military infrastructure which, up-to-recently, had not had much publicity in this country.
For example, although the U.S. attacks along with Israel on Iran began before dawn February 28, 2026, there apparently was a lack of expectation for the size of Iran counterattacks with missiles and drones that actually took place later that same day, February 28, in Bahrain and at other U.S. bases in Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
And while the White House and Pentagon repeatedly have described the destruction U.S. and Israeli forces have done to Iran’s military, there has been as almost no mention of what was happening to the U.S. facilities.
In mid-September, the Defense Department (DoD) Inspector General (IG), as Lead IG, released a report on Operation Epic Fury (OEF) -- the war against Iran. The IG report found that “Iranian strikes damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan during the conflict,” as of June 30, 2026, and the DoD had “$3.7 billion in equipment losses, but [that] does not include costs for infrastructure repairs.”
The IG report later noted it “did not include the cost of military construction for damaged infrastructure in its estimate because [DoD] has not determined what its future posture will be in the region, how it will construct its bases, and what percentage of the construction costs Allies and partners will contribute.”
On the other hand, the IG report did say “damage to U.S. embassies, consulates, and other diplomatic facilities had already cost the U.S. approximately $184 million.”
I should point out that the CBO September report, sent to Congress one day after the IG report was released, noted that DoD had failed to provide to it, the CBO, with an estimate on the cost of the damage to U.S. bases and facilities.
In fact, there still has yet to be any publicly-released official DoD estimate of the cost of damage to U.S. military bases and facilities based on Iran’s attacks.
However, Iran attacks in those first days of the war continued in a scale and duration that appeared to have taken the U.S. government by surprise. For example, it was not until March 2, the third day after attacks began, before the Navy and the State Department ordered the evacuation of dependents from Bahrain.
The September CBO report said, “Military families and non-essential personnel were evacuated [from Bahrain] in March 2026, and remain displaced across temporary housing, awaiting the eventual retrieval of personal belongings left behind…[and] Evacuated families have faced added strain as military leadership noted that temporary evacuation financial support is scheduled to conclude on November 30, 2026, even though shipping personal effects is expected to take several more months.”
Also indicating a surprise from Iran’s military response, the DoD’s IG report noted, “Prior to OEF, Bahrain had been U.S. Navy Central’s main logistics hub to sustain operations in the Persian Gulf region, USCENTCOM [U.S. Central Command] said. During major combat operations, Iran targeted Bahrain with [drones] and ballistic missile strikes. USCENTCOM stated that it initially shifted naval sustainment resources from Bahrain to alternate hubs.”
The IG Report added, “The establishment of adequate naval bases and support ports posed significant challenges before and during OEF, arising from complexities and due to uncertainties with host nation access permissions to utilize ports for fleet resupply, USCENTCOM said.”
For example, the need to shift logistics support and infrastructure to Diego Garcia added 14-to-18 days for transporting material by sea, according to the IG report.
As for the U.S. Combined Air and Space Operations Center (CAOC) at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the Air Force had since 2019 periodically conducted tests and temporary shifts of its operations to Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to demonstrate distributed command-and-control capabilities and reduced reliance on a single point of failure.
As reported in June by Air and Space Forces Magazine, personnel were transferred away from Al Udeid before February 28. Therefore, when Iran weapons struck the COAC facility at Al Udeid Air Base in the early days of the war, operations were already being run out of Shaw Air Force Base.
Then, there is the already publicized, but apparently un-planned, heavy use of both offensive and defensive U.S. weaponry caused by the Iran war.
For example, the September CBO report estimated, “The cost to replace the munitions expended through August 1, 2026, is $21.7 billion: $7.3 billion for the land-attack cruise missiles, $13.1 billion for the missile defense interceptors, and $1.2 billion for other munitions. Replacing those munitions has been the largest single component of the costs incurred by DoD during the conflict.”
CBO estimated that it “would probably take at least five years” to replace certain interceptors even at an increased rate of production.
An October 5, Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, U.S. Military Operations Against Iran’s Missile and Nuclear Programs, raises another point worth considering -- whether the Trump planners understood the difficulty they faced in trying to disarm Iran.
The CRS report noted that President Trump on February 28, listed among the OEF’s objectives was destroying Iran’s missiles, and “[razing] their missile industry to the ground.”
However, as CRS reported following the initial U.S./Israeli attacks, “DIA [the Defense Intelligence Agency] assessed in April 2026 that Iran ‘retains thousands of missiles and one-way attack UAVs [drones] that can threaten U.S. and partner forces throughout the region, despite degradations to its capabilities from both attrition and expenditure.’”
CRS also reported articles that said “that Iran may have begun rebuilding military infrastructure, restoring access to missile bases, and resuming missile production using stockpiled components. An Iranian official reportedly asserted in August that Iran has sufficient ‘stockpiles in our underground missile and drone cities’ to enable continued production.”
The CRS report suggested Congress consider directing the Pentagon to produce an “annual report on military power of Iran,” along with a public version of that report.
While dealing with public reporting, I must note the odd way DoD has been handling public disclosure of U.S. dead and wounded since February 28, a system clearly designed to lower the numbers.
Instead of having one category, there are two – one for the period February 28-to-July 6, covering OEF with 15 deaths and 417 wounded; the second from July 7-to-present in a second category, “overseas operations,” which lists eight deaths and 448 wounded.
The Trump administration rationale was that a temporary ceasefire or memorandum of understanding was reached to end OEF and that fighting resumed on July 7, after the earlier ceasefire collapsed.
However, as Stars and Stripes reported last Thursday, “The Pentagon has revised the number of U.S. troops who have died during operations related to the war against Iran to 23… Additionally, 865 American service members have been wounded.”
Now we are in a period where President Trump has threatened, after today’s elections, to renew attacks on Iran. He has amassed a battle force that could carry it out. He has also warned allies in the region it may be coming.
The State Department has ordered nonessential government employees and their families to leave Saudi Arabia and made staffing adjustments or family departures across several diplomatic missions in the Middle East.
But as I have indicated above, Iran, which has the largest armed forces in the region, has a capability to strike back, whether the Pentagon acknowledges that or not.
Iran has developed a defense industry and its own military capabilities, including extensive underground facilities, and dispersal of munitions inventories.
The volume of U.S. offensive and defensive ammunition used so far against Iran show that any U.S. renewing of attacks to force Tehran to accept Washington’s terms, would not be a day or two operation.
And perhaps just as important to think about -- given what Ukraine has shown -- explosive drones can be launched toward targets thousands of miles away, showing no country is completely safe, no matter how far its borders are from the enemy.
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