When asked about the cost of replacing munitions, repairing bases and injuries to US personnel, Pentagon Chief Financial Officer Jay Hurst has said it is “the hardest thing to estimate right now”.

“We don’t know what our future posture is going to be, or the future construction of those bases,” Hurst tells the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator Richard Blumenthal has expressed his dissatisfaction with the response and demanded a more accurate estimate.

“I think $25 billion is less than half, maybe less than a quarter of the total cost of the war … I think you owe it to the American people to give us the straight talk about wat the costs have been,” he says.