Iran destroyed up to 30 Reaper drones, the Pentagon says.
The report offers the first official accounting of a war Washington has stayed largely quiet on.
The Congressional Budget Office counted 24 Reapers destroyed at $30 million apiece, a loss between $720 million and $900 million.
Independent tracking put the toll higher: at least 45 Reapers, a quarter of the prewar fleet, by August.
Washington still must decide whether to rebuild its battered Gulf bases in Bahrain and Qatar.
How each outlet framed it
- The War Zone
- synthesizes Pentagon and CBO loss data with OSINT tracking to quantify replacement costs and munitions strain implications
Sources: The War Zone