Trump’s War May Cost $72 Billion — Nearly 3 Times Higher Than the Admin Said |
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The Pentagon’s official estimate of the direct financial cost of the U.S. war on Iran is a nearly threefold undercount of the actual price tag of the war, according to an expert analysis published Wednesday.
Stephen Semler, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, produced the new cost estimate for the Popular Information newsletter. Accounting for armament use, troop deployments, and other factors, Semler estimated that the U.S. government spent $71.8 billion on the Iran war over the course of 60 days — an average of $1.2 billion per day.
“Like the estimates from Pentagon leadership and unnamed officials, this figure refers only to direct war costs — near-term expenses for military operations, munitions, and the like — and not indirect costs, which include broader economic impacts, interest on the national debt, and longer-term expenses like veterans’ care,” explained Semler, who argued that the Pentagon’s $25 billion cost estimate suffers from “incomplete accounting of damaged or destroyed military assets, the exclusion of costs outside the........