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Trump’s War on Iran Could Cost Trillions

“My kids’ kids, and probably their kids, are going to be paying for this,” said one official briefed on the U.S war on Iran.

The Trump administration is drastically undercounting the price tag of the U.S. war with Iran, peddling fragmentary estimates that offer Americans a skewed understanding of the costs.

The Pentagon on Thursday said the U.S. spent about $11.3 billion in just one week of its war on Iran; Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett similarly put the figure at $12 billion on Sunday.

But these sums are dwarfed by estimates offered by experts in the costs of war, lawmakers experienced with the Pentagon budget, and two government officials briefed on Operation Epic Fury who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

At the very least, they say the war is burning through between $1 billion and $2 billion per day — or roughly $11,500 to $23,000 per second. The cost, the officials told The Intercept, could rise to a quarter trillion dollars or more over the coming months.

Even that is a drop in the bucket compared to the long-term expenses, which could cost the U.S. trillions of dollars in the decades to come. One of the officials lamented that Americans would be paying off the war for generations.

“If this war takes months rather than weeks, the costs will become astronomical,” said Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget watchdog advocating for an end to wasteful spending,

Jules Hurst III, the War Department’s acting comptroller and chief financial officer, called the Pentagon’s initial $11.3 billion estimate a “ballpark number,” speaking at the Reagan Institute’s National Security Innovation Base Summit. Hurst said a more comprehensive figure would be provided with a supplemental budget request, which he said the Pentagon plans to soon submit to the White House and Congress.

Democratic lawmakers believe the true number is far higher because the Pentagon estimate did not include many expenses, including the massive buildup of military assets, weapons, and personnel in the Middle East ahead of the conflict. Lawmakers have said they expect the Iran War supplemental request to reach at least $50 billion — on top of a $1.5 trillion War Department budget request for 2027.

When he appeared before the House Armed Services Committee recently, Elbridge Colby, the under secretary of war for policy, said that the military campaign against Iran had been “scoped out” for up to five weeks, but that the president could extend it. He was, however, unable to tell Rep. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., the cost. “I can’t give you an answer at this point,” he said. The Office of the Secretary of Defense as well as Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson were no more forthcoming with The Intercept.

Jacobs told The Intercept that Americans had been conned into an open-ended conflict, with unclear goals and no exit plan.

“We haven’t gotten sufficient details in public or behind closed doors about the strategy, the objectives, the length of the operation, or how much this will cost taxpayers,” she told The Intercept. “The American people are demanding an end to this illegal war to prevent more killings of children, retaliation against U.S. service members, skyrocketing costs to U.S. taxpayers, and yet another endless war.”

Hassett, the director of Trump’s National Economic Council, said the war was still expected to take four to six weeks. But without accurate information from the Pentagon on the cost of the war, experts, lawmakers, and government officials have stepped into the breach with estimates of the financial burden of Trump’s war with Iran — his second war on the country within the span of a year.

The numbers are immense.

A three-week conflict could cost taxpayers between $60 billion and $130 billion, according to the two government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, with both stressing that the estimates were speculative. “It’s a back of the napkin estimate,” said one official.

“They really have no idea of the real cost.”

“They really have no idea of the real cost.”

A five-week war could top out at $175 billion. Eight weeks could put the total at $250 billion. “They really have no idea of the real cost,” said one of the officials, noting that bookkeeping is not a Pentagon strong suit. The self-styled War........

© The Intercept