America just blocked a senator from its biggest Middle East base
1 hour ago · 7 October 2026Share
Senator Chris Murphy speaks at the Milford Democratic Town Committee Headquarters.Mikeycdiamond · CC BY 4.0
A US senator says the Pentagon shut him out of America's biggest base in the Middle East.
Chris Murphy is a Democrat from Connecticut. He sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
He just spent a week in the Gulf. Qatar first, then Saudi Arabia.
And he says the Pentagon would not let him onto Al Udeid Air Base. No tour. No briefing on the Iran war. Nothing.
Murphy says quote "an active, unprecedented, unconstitutional effort underway to hide the costs of this war".
So that's a sitting senator saying the Pentagon is hiding the cost of a war from the people whose job is to watch over it.
Now, Al Udeid isn't just any base. It's the biggest American base in the Middle East. It's where Central Command runs the whole region from.
And Iran has been hitting it, over and over, since the US and Israel went to war with Iran back in February.
Murphy went to the Gulf to see the damage for himself. Before he left, he said he wanted to see the impact of the war firsthand, the damage to American facilities, and how it's hurt relationships with partners in the region.
He's the first Democrat to visit the Gulf since this war started.
And he did see some of the damage. Two days ago he went to the US embassy in Riyadh. He says he saw significant damage from two Iranian strikes.
He says the strikes hit overnight. And if they'd hit during the working day, it would have been a mass casualty event.
He also says both nights he was in Riyadh, there were urgent alerts for incoming Houthi missiles.
But Al Udeid was the one place he couldn't get into.
The rest of this story is for members.
A U.S. Marine Corps KC-130J Super Hercules lands at Al Udeid Air Force Base, Qatar, Sept. 14, 2024. File photo. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Emeline Schirmer · Public domain
A senior Pentagon official says Murphy's office was told before the trip he wouldn't get the department's support to access the base. The official says that's consistent with a directive Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put out on 3 March, restricting travel to the area.
The official says quote "The Department applies the Secretary's guidance evenly".
So the Pentagon's line is: this isn't about Murphy. It's a standing rule.
Murphy isn't buying that. He says it's part of a deliberate campaign of confusion that his Republican colleagues in Congress should demand an end to.
And here's the twist. While the Pentagon shut him out, the State Department opened doors.
Murphy says Secretary of State Marco Rubio's department set up his meetings in the Gulf. That included Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and separately, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
Murphy put the two right next to each other. One part of the administration helping him. One part blocking him.
And he's not the only one in Congress asking questions. Members of both parties, including some Republicans, have been pushing the administration for more detail on what this war is costing, how it's being fought, and how many troops have been killed or wounded.
There's already one number pointing at the scale of it. A Pentagon inspector general report came out last month. It found hundreds of buildings and structures damaged or destroyed by Iranian strikes, across bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman and Jordan.
Murphy has already said what he thinks this war is. He posted online that it's now a full-blown regional war, exactly what experts warned would happen if the US attacked Iran. He called it a disaster made by Donald Trump.
So what don't we know? Whether this travel block is just about Murphy, or applies to every member of Congress. And whether the Pentagon budges at all if the Foreign Relations Committee pushes back.
Right now, the Pentagon is standing by its March directive.
And a senator who's supposed to oversee American foreign policy still hasn't set foot inside the base Iran keeps attacking.
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