Trump Is Going to Blow More Than $100 Billion on Iran War

The cost of the Iran war could well exceed $100 billion now that the conflict has reignited.

The Trump administration has not officially released any figures related to the total cost of the war, but U.S. intelligence officials have predicted that the overall cost thus far could be greater than $100 billion, Wired reported Wednesday.

The hesitation on the final count boils down to whether or not the Pentagon decides to replace part of its airfleet that was damaged or destroyed in the war, according to insiders that spoke with Wired. If it does, the cost will go up.

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service tallied 42 lost or damaged U.S. aircraft in a May 13 report, including an Boeing E-3 Sentry that costs upward of $270 million, an MQ-4C Triton drone that costs around $618 million, and four F-15E Strike Eagle fighter aircraft that cost roughly $65 million a pop.

The exact cost of the war has been difficult to pin down. Late last month, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, told the House Appropriations Committee that the U.S. had spent $30 billion on the Iran war. But even he must have known that figure was wildly inaccurate, considering that he had written and signed a formal request “on behalf of the president” for $88 billion in supplemental defense funding from Congress days earlier, including a $72 billion increase for the war effort.

An independent review of U.S. expenses through the four-month war was published last week by Popular Information’s Stephen Semler, who found that Trump officials had dramatically lowballed Congress on the real cost of the conflict (Semler also co-founded the U.S. foreign policy think tank Security Policy Reform Institute).

In order to build an independent analysis of the Pentagon’s expenditures, Semler analyzed procurement information, operating and support data, open-source intelligence, statements from U.S. officials, and media reports.

Over the first 120 days of the conflict, Semler tallied $28.5 billion in mobilization, administrative, and immediate combat costs; $46.7 billion spent on missiles, interceptors, and bombs; $20.3 billion on damaged or destroyed military assets; $2.9 billion on Israel’s bombs and interceptors; and an additional $4.8 billion on war costs to nonmilitary U.S. agencies. All in all, Semler estimated that the true cost of the U.S.-Iran war is closer to $103 billion.

Yet no one in charge of the government—from the White House to top congressional Republicans—has posited exactly how the U.S. will pay for the war. Whereas taxes were raised in previous wars (such as World War I, World War II, and the Korean War) in order to fund conflict, the current administration has so far offered no such solution. ...