WASHINGTON — Eight months into the Iran war — and less than a week ahead of the midterm elections — congressional Democrats spotlighted the unresolved conflict’s costs.

“Trump’s war will take years to recover from,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, in a statement on Wednesday marking the eight-month mark of the conflict. “The Trump administration has failed to present any credible strategy and has hidden basic information from Congress and the public to cover up for it. This war must end, and real diplomats must be empowered to secure an enduring peace.”

The war has simmered down since February into what is now a less intensive series of U.S. and Iranian military actions to control shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, plus a stepped-up campaign of attacks by the Houthis, a group of Iranian proxies in Yemen, aimed mostly at Saudi Arabia.

But President Donald Trump recently signaled he may launch a new wave of U.S. military strikes against Iran after the midterms.

The conflict’s costs continue to unfold.

Since February, 21 U.S. service members have died in the conflict, with some 850 injured.

Meanwhile, consumer prices are stubbornly high as a result of restricted trade in the Persian Gulf, and that inflation has become a salient election issue.

The war’s cost to the Pentagon, meanwhile, has hit at least $47.1 billion, up from $43.6 billion in early September — not counting the cost of repairing damaged U.S. military bases in the Middle East, according to an Oct. 16 Pentagon report to Congress viewed by CQ Roll Call.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in mid-September that even at the reduced rate of fighting in the war’s recent months, each additional month of the conflict could add $2 billion to $3 billion to the government’s price tag.

Objectives and expenses

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have said repeatedly over the last eight months that the war’s objectives have been met, that Iran’s military has been destroyed and the conflict either is or will soon be over.

Reed, for his part, noted on Wednesday that Trump promised “to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, eliminate its missile arsenal and proxy networks, and topple the regime itself within weeks. Eight months later, not a single objective has been achieved and the United States is in a dangerously weaker position.”

Congressional Republicans were mostly silent Wednesday on the eight-month milestone.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who plans to file impeachment articles against Hegseth once Congress returns to Washington the week of Nov. 9, posted on X a video of Trump saying at a campaign event in Texas on Tuesday, “When will the war in Iran end? Whenever I want it to end.”

To that, Massie replied: “So much for the legal fiction that it isn’t a war. U.S. law and the Constitution prohibit the Executive branch from fighting a war that isn’t declared or authorized by Congress.”

Massie is leaving Congress after this session, having lost his GOP primary to a rival backed by Trump.

Other Democrats seized on the administration’s past promises of quick victory and the war’s continuing costs.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., issued a statement that concluded: “Eight months in, Americans continue to face mounting costs, nearly two-thirds say going to war was the wrong decision, and there is still no end in sight — even if President Trump would like to claim so.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence panels, said: “This illegal war was launched without a clear plan, executed without a coherent strategy, and now, eight months later, American families are still paying the price at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and with their tax dollars. From the start, this administration has lied to the American people about the timeline, the strategy, and the cost of this war.”

_____

©2026 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.