Washington is weighing a pullback from facilities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, with some damaged infrastructure potentially left unrepaired, the report says
Iranian missile and drone strikes have inflicted up to $15 billion in damage on military installations hosting American forces across the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing sources and its own satellite imagery analysis. The massive destruction adds to the Pentagon’s mounting war bill, which has already reached nearly $50 billion.
The newspaper’s analysis identified a total of 274 damaged structures across 24 installations with an American military presence. At least 119 buildings at 13 installations were damaged in the opening two weeks alone; the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain was among the hardest hit. Tehran launched a retaliatory wave of strikes following the unprovoked US-Israeli attack which started the conflict on February 28.
An unnamed US official familiar with the matter told the WSJ that the Pentagon estimated damage to bases from Iranian strikes – which became increasingly precise as the conflict escalated – at a minimum of $5 billion. Another WSJ source suggested that the number could potentially be as high as $15 billion.
Many installations are shared with Washington’s regional allies, meaning they could potentially pay for some of the damage, the report says, adding that the Pentagon may elect not to restore some infrastructure at all.
In particular, Washington is reportedly considering pulling back from its installations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia so that its personnel would be out of reach. Tehran has previously demanded a full-scale US military withdrawal from the region as a prerequisite for sustainable peace.
Iran, meanwhile, has been rapidly restoring missile facilities and recovering buried weapons stockpiles, the report adds, noting that the military build-up comes as US President Donald Trump is considering further strikes despite shortages in American interceptor inventories.
However, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been dismissive about Tehran’s military potential, saying in August that “They still have some capabilities, but it’s nowhere near what it was at all.”
Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, accused the administration of seeking to “mask the true cost of the war” after being denied access to Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, where the WSJ identified at least a dozen damaged buildings. The Pentagon said that the ban was due to regional travel restrictions.
According to the Pentagon’s latest estimate provided to Congress, the Iran war has cost $47.1 billion through October 16, excluding base damage. The figure includes roughly $29 billion to replace expended munitions, $11.9 billion in operational expenses, and $6.1 billion in equipment losses.
As for the casualties, the US military now acknowledges 23 deaths linked to Iran war operations, including 11 from enemy fire, and 865 wounded.
