Washington hiding billion-dollar losses to Iran’s precision strikes

TEHRAN, Iran (MNTV) — Following 40 days of unrelenting U.S.-Israeli aggression, mounting evidence reveals that the United States Department of War is deliberately concealing catastrophic, billion-dollar military losses inflicted by highly effective Iranian retaliatory strikes, the Daily Mail reports.

In the latest episode of the Daily Mail’s Photo Evidence, the British paper “scrutinizes new satellite images that reveal how America’s Department of War may not be telling the full truth about the scale of its losses during the Iran war,” it said.

Since the launch of the joint U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign, Iran has retaliated in kind by targeting American military assets across the Persian Gulf with missile and drone strikes.

“Iran’s war strategy has been anything but conventional. Rather than targeting fighter jets or bombers, the IRGC has systematically attempted to blind and cripple America’s command and control layer, launching attacks against radar and air defense systems,” says the Mail.

“It is these costly losses in strategic equipment that the Department of War is not being fully transparent about,” the paper wrote.

The report “is borne out by looking at the latest EU Sentinel satellite images and cross referencing these with open source flight tracking data, ground photography and pictures issued by Iran’s state media,” it added.

The U.S. Department of War has asked Planet Labs, the world’s largest commercial satellite imagery provider, to withhold indefinitely all images of the region, including the bases of allied states.

According to the Mail, the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia provides an example of this lack of transparency. “On March 27, we know Iran managed to effectively destroy an AWACS aircraft during an attack on the base.

Looking at before and after satellite images, you can see the black rotor dome of the aircraft is completely gone and there’s a black scorch mark on the tarmac,” the paper said.

Beyond the loss of the AWACS, evidence shows “how as many as seven KC-135 refueling tankers may have been destroyed or damaged in the March 27 strike,” it added.

Images of the air base’s main apron, released by Iranian media, which claim three KC-135 tankers were destroyed and four more damaged in the strike, tally with independent EU satellite imagery, the Mail further said.

Replacing just one KC-135 with its modern equivalent could cost the American taxpayer as much as $240 million, it said.

“In the EU image, you can clearly see a scorch mark on the ground, which tallies with where the tankers were in the Iranian image,” it said.

“Looking at one airbase on just one day of the Iran war, it appears probable that the US lost over a billion dollars worth of equipment. The UK’s entire defense budget for 2026 was £62.2 billion,” the paper added.

“America is not being entirely honest with the damage being caused by the war,” said Daily Mail reporter Catherine Barnwell who scrutinized new satellite images.

“It [the U.S. government] has stopped U.S. satellite companies from publishing imagery which shows us the damage that other sources and photographers on the ground are revealing.

“Officials have given off-the-record briefings confirming that Prince Sultan Air Base was hit on March 27, but have said nothing about the destruction of the aircraft,” she added.

The loss of just one AWACS plane costs the American taxpayer $724 million.

Iranian state media also released images showing that strikes on the base devastated America’s aerial refueling capabilities, effectively destroying or damaging multiple KC-135 Stratotankers. Replacing a single KC-135 with a modern equivalent costs up to $240 million.

It put the number of the U.S. military aircraft permanently lost at 39 by mid-April, with another 10 damaged. Experts estimate the U.S. had suffered at least $1.4 billion worth of combat losses during the first six days of war.

Iranian air defenses downed a prized MQ-4C Triton drone worth between $200 million and $250 million in the Persian Gulf. The F-35 Lightning II, marketed as highly survivable and costing $100 million per unit, suffered its first-ever combat loss when it was struck by Iranian ground fire, Iranian officials say.

The officials confirm downing two F-35s, alongside four F-15s (three in Kuwait and one in Tehran), two F-16s (one in central regions and one in the south), and one F-18 in the south. Furthermore, Iranian short-range air defenses shot down over 160 U.S. and Israeli drones during the war.

They say by early April, Iranian surface-to-air missiles destroyed 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones — most of them around Shiraz and Kish Island — resulting in an estimated $720 million loss.

In the much-hyped pilot rescue mission in Isfahan, the U.S. Special Forces were forced to destroy two of their own MC-130J Commando-II aircraft—costing $120 million each—after failing to take off. They also destroyed four AH-6 Little Bird helicopters, valued at $7.5 million per unit, to prevent them from falling into Iranian hands.

Officials say satellite images from airbases in Jordan, Kuwait, and the UAE expose the destruction of 3 F-35 stealth fighters, as well as significant damage to B-21 bombers and a drone fleet.

Photos from the Port of Fujairah and southern bases show massive infernos consuming huge fuel depots intended to support prolonged U.S. operations. The value of the destroyed fuel alone is estimated at over $800 million, they say.

Officials claim it is probable that the U.S. lost over a billion dollars in equipment, exposing a massive gap between the Pentagon’s official narrative and the devastating reality of Iran’s defensive capabilities.