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 a 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".