The announcement by a senior Pentagon official that the war on Iran has cost the US military $25 billion so far has drawn sharp criticism from the Democrats, Al Jazeera reports.

Congressman Mark DeSaulnier argued that the billions spent “could have helped lower healthcare costs for millions of Americans”.

“Instead, we’ve lost 14 American servicemembers, driven gas prices way up, and made Americans less safe,” DeSaulnier said in a post on X.

Ro Khanna, another Democratic congressman, accused the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, of being ignorant of the war’s true cost to US taxpayers.

“I asked Hegseth how much the Iran war is costing Americans in replacement costs, gas, and food prices? He had no clue of the economic harm,” Khanna wrote on X. “Unbelievable.”