For 81 days the Pentagon told the world Operation Epic Fury was the most successful air campaign since 2003. It probably was. But the bill has finally arrived, and a Congressional Research Service report quietly dropped on May 20 puts a number on it: at least 42 American aircraft damaged or destroyed.

That total includes manned fighters, tankers, special-operations transports, an AWACS, a helicopter and an entire flock of Reapers and Tritons. And buried in the footnotes is the more uncomfortable truth — the CRS thinks the real number is higher than they were willing to print.

This is the first time the United States has acknowledged, even at arm’s length, what 12 weeks of bombing Iran actually cost the Air Force.

The Numbers the Pentagon Will Never Print

The classified losses are the iceberg the CRS only hints at. The acknowledged operational deployment of the still-unconfirmed RQ-180 stealth ISR drone during Epic Fury — first reported in April — almost certainly produced its own casualty list that nobody will see for a decade. Pentagon Comptroller Jules W. Hurst III testified on May 12 that the war’s bill has climbed to $29 billion. That number assumes the public losses are the whole story.

They aren’t. They never are.

The most useful single line in the CRS report is the one that admits the number is “subject to revision.” The 42 figure is a floor, not a ceiling. We will only get the real total years from now, when serial numbers quietly stop returning to American bases and analysts piece together the missing tails. For now, what we have is the largest combat loss list since Desert Storm — and Congress, for once, is the one putting it in the open.

Sources: Congressional Research Service Insight IN12692; The Aviationist; The Drive; ABC News; BBC News.