When US and Israeli forces launched Operation Epic Fury on February 28, striking Iran's nuclear sites, missile factories and military infrastructure and killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Trump administration was expecting a walk in the park. He was convinced by alleged dubious foreign intelligence coming from Israel that taking out the chain of command and the entire house of cards would collapse. What the Pentagon has not publicly acknowledged — until now — is what Iran did in return. 

A major investigation by US television NBC News backing Iranian claims from weeks ago, drawing on three government officials, two congressional aides and a further source familiar with the damage assessment, has established that American military bases and equipment across the Persian Gulf region suffered significant damage from Iranian strikes in the first few days of the war that was totally unexpected and far worse than the administration has publicly admitted. The damage was such a surprise and Iran's response so deadly that Emirati officials are allegedly wavering in their support for US troops in the region. 

Damage to US military infrastructure alone is expected to cost well over $5bn, a figure that does not include radar systems, each worth over $1bn, weapons systems, aircraft, and other equipment that were either damaged or rendered permanently unsalvageable from Iran's highly accurate targeting of military sites, partly due to support from alleged Chinese and Russian satellite and intelligence. 

Now, the US Congress is currently considering supplemental funding that could surpass $100bn to cover the full range of war-related expenses and reconstruction. But it may all be for nothing. 

"No one knows anything. And it's not for lack of asking," one Republican congressional aide told NBC. "We have been asking for weeks and not getting specifics, even as the Pentagon is asking for a record-high budget."

The Pentagon declined to provide detailed public assessments, citing operational security, but subsequent satellite images show the damage was extensive. Separately, it has been reported that all 13 of the US military bases in the Gulf have been partially closed down or evacuated.

"We do not discuss battle damage assessments for operational security reasons. Our forces remain fully operational, and we continue to execute our mission with the same readiness and combat effectiveness," an official said.

Theatre-wide degradation campaign

An assessment by the American Enterprise Institute found the main damage across the region included:

Bahrain — US Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters: Seven reports of damage to satellite communications, radar-protection structures and large warehouses. The nerve centre of US naval operations in the region sustained serious damage, with repairs to the headquarters building alone estimated at $200mn according to one congressional official cited by the New York Times following a Pentagon assessment. The Fifth Fleet headquarters no longer hosts a single ship in the Gulf.

Iraq — Erbil military base: A munitions storage facility was damaged. Iraqi militias aligned with Iran joined the Iranian front in the opening phase, causing the evacuation of not only US bases but also installations of other Nato countries.

Jordan — Muwaffaq Salti Air Base: Damage to a general administrative building.

Kuwait — Ali Al Salem Air Base: Ten reports of damage to warehouses and a runway.

Camp Arifjan: Eleven reports of damage to radar-protection structures and small and large warehouses.

Camp Buehring: Damage to satellite communications, a hangar and warehouses — and the location of the most startling individual incident of the war's opening phase.

Shuaiba Port: Damage to a general administrative building.

Qatar — Al Udeid Air Base: A runway destroyed at the largest US air base in the Middle East.

Saudi Arabia — Prince Sultan Air Base: Damage to a small warehouse and a radar-protection structure.

UAE — Al Dhafra Air Base: Eleven reports of damage to fuel storage, a medical clinic, hangars and barracks.

Al Ruwais military base: Seven reports of damage to small warehouses and buildings.

Iranian strikes systematically targeted the infrastructure nodes that make US power projection function: satellite communications at Bahrain's Fifth Fleet headquarters to blind the command network; radar protection structures at multiple Kuwaiti bases to degrade air defence awareness; fuel storage at Al Dhafra to ground aircraft; the runway at Al Udeid — America's largest regional air base — to prevent flight operations; and hangars across multiple locations to destroy the aircraft sheltering within them.

In total, the AEI assessment found Iran struck more than 100 targets across 11 US military installations in seven countries. Military asset losses were substantial: at least one fighter jet, more than a dozen MQ-9 Reaper drones, two MC-130 tankers and four helicopters were destroyed, with several additional aircraft and defence systems severely damaged.

The F-5 incident

The most symbolically significant element of the NBC investigation concerns an incident in the opening days of the war that has been entirely absent from official US accounts. An Iranian F-5 fighter jet — a US-made jet that the former Shah of Iran bought in large numbers in the 1960s — bombed Camp Buehring in Kuwait despite the base having air defences in place. Two US officials told NBC it marked "the first time an enemy fixed-wing aircraft has struck an American military base in years."

The implications of the F-5 penetration extend beyond the immediate damage. Minister of War Pete Hegseth told reporters in March that Iran's missiles would not make it to their targets.

"There's almost nothing they can militarily do about it," he said. "Yes, they will still shoot some missiles, but we will shoot them down."

The NBC investigation establishes that a notable number of missiles and aircraft made it through. A decades-old Iranian fighter jet, flying in Kuwaiti airspace against a base with active air defences, dropped ordnance on American soil. It is a fact that the administration has chosen not to discuss.

Bad news

NBC reports that the White House asked private satellite companies not to publish images of US bases in the region after they were struck by Iran. The request was revealed by Planet Labs in an April 4 email to customers, saying the company's 14-day blackout of the affected areas was being extended.

The New York Times had previously used publicly available satellite data to publish before-and-after comparisons of US installations, showing the scale of the damage. The extension of the commercial imaging blackout was a play by the administration seeking to manage its bad news flow.

IntelliNews defence analyst Patricia Marins has argued that the NBC investigation validates a conclusion she reached before the war began: that America's forward basing strategy, consolidated under the Carter Doctrine of 1980, had become structurally obsolete the moment its primary adversary acquired precision long-range strike capability at scale.

"The 2026 war exposed critical flaws in the American siege strategy, a posture the US had maintained since the Cold War," Marins wrote. "What was once seen as a protective network has practically become a collection of vulnerable targets."

She noted the logical inversion that the war revealed: bases in Bahrain designed to project power and strangle the Iranian economy became the targets of Iranian precision strikes, leaving the US struggling to resupply its own besieged installations.

"The Fifth Fleet headquarters no longer hosts a single ship in the Gulf and has been rendered uninhabitable, along with 14 other bases in the region,” Marins writes.

The Iranian campaign has been a systematic capability degradation operation rather than an attempt to kill American personnel. "It is obvious that you cannot operate bases 100 to 500 km away from a country that is a missile and drone powerhouse," she wrote, adding: "How did no one at the Pentagon see this coming?”

Trump declared on April 24 that Iran has "been obliterated" and that Washington has "all the cards" in peace negotiations.