Breaking down the U.S. cost of the war in Iran
I’m a senior reporter with CBC’s national investigative unit. As a former foreign correspondent, I’ve travelled and reported extensively in the Middle East, including from Iran.
A full reckoning of the cost of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran would include the dead and wounded, damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure, as well as the global economic turmoil and as-yet-unseen downstream effects.
But even by the much narrower measure of military spending, the price of this conflict is already astronomical.
The Trump administration hasn’t been eager to share information about what has been spent thus far, but leaks and estimates are starting to give us a clearer picture.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post and CNN both cited Pentagon sources who said the cost of munitions alone over the first 48 hours of the war was $5.6 billion US.
The New York Times reported that the cost of the first week of the war was approximately $6 billion US — or $857 million a day. Other published estimates have been even higher, ranging from $890 million to $2 billion US a day.
The most comprehensive costing so far comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think-tank. It suggests the first 100 hours of the conflict cost the U.S. military $3.7 billion.
There’s an interesting caveat buried in their footnotes. Far less information about the number and type of airstrikes is being shared with the press and public than in previous conflicts, making it difficult to even guesstimate the costs.
However, that will all change soon. As the CSIS report notes, most of what the Pentagon spent in the opening hours of the war was unbudgeted — 3.5 billion of the $3.7 billion. And Trump administration officials will have to go through Congress to get more cash.
The rumoured ask? A cool $50 billion US to start.
