Trump’s war of choice against Iran has already cost American blood and lives. So far at least six troops are dead and while no number of wounded has been released it’s reportedly in the dozens. Republicans, some of them have been openly critical of Trump but when push came to shove in the Senate today all but one (Rand Paul) backed him and defeated a measure to stop the madness. Expect the House to do the same – back Trump. Troop’s lives, limbs and blood don’t seem to matter much to GOPers but money does and we’ve already shelled out plenty with no end in sight.
So, a question for conservatives whether your elected officials or people you know who rail against govt. “waste, fraud and abuse” (and Trump’s war is all three) remind them of a couple of things. First, Trump said this summer he’d obliterated Iran’s nuclear program. He hadn’t of course but he set it back by years. Leaving aside the question of whether they were ever close to developing an atomic weapon or seek to there was no imminent threat. So Trump was either lying or he and our intelligence people effing BLEW it in a massive display of incompetence. Don’t let them off the hook on that.
Second, we are burning through sophisticated and expensive weapons at an alarming rate. We were already stretched given what we expended on Yemen and helping fight Houthis in the region, using up anti-air weapons faster than we can manufacture new ones. But each one cost money. Some cost (ahem) only in the hundreds of thousands but many cost a million bucks or more each. Some are many millions of dollars. Tomahawks for example. Despite our impressive capability to shoot down drones and missiles aimed at us or Israel and other allies some get through. And this article from The Independent discusses the matter.
The linked article says it’s estimated the war could take up to five weeks. It also says that so far over 2000 places in Iran have been targeted. What it doesn’t say in that statement is that each site/placed attacked almost certainly had multiple missiles fired at them. Again, not just old school laser guided bombs but sophisticated and expensive weapons. Admittedly I’m riffing here but I beg you to indulge me. Degrading and in a hurry Iran’s ability to launch strikes would mean using the proverbial ‘good stuff’ as in expensive weapons that are extremely and reliably so precise.
Some cost a couple or million each but let’s be conservative and say an average cost of a million per missile. Let’s be even kinder to Trumpty and Petey and say only two missiles per target were used. That adds up to a cool Four BILLION dollars! Now factor in the cost of ship fired missiles, and anti-air missiles both at sea and on the ground that have been fired to intercept incoming Iranian drone and missile attacks. Thousands have been fired off already and while not all cost a million dollars or more they at least are in the hundreds of thousands. Without any info that’s even a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess) how many thousand we’ve fired in defense and what types I won’t venture an actual cost estimate. I think it’s fair to say that too is at least a couple billion and quite possibly more.
So, if you’re counting not Trump’s ‘bar tab’ but his WAR Tab we’re already at least six billion and it’s not even been a week. Granted, we will get to a point where air superiority will allow use of aircraft to lase targets and allow use of cheaper, laser guided bombs to be dropped but we still are likely to lose some aircraft and crews. We’ve already lost three, shot down by our own freaking people over friendly territory. Or they crashed into each other. Or a combination of the two. Maybe they were flying in a tight formation and someone reacted instinctively into an evasive maneuver and it took out two more of our jets? Whatever happened it’s every bit as embarrassing as when we lost jets in the Red Sea last year as carriers took strong turns to avoid getting hit by incoming missiles. The one’s we’ve lost in the past week will take a hundred million each to replace!
So there’s that too but as the linked article goes on to talk about we’ve sustained other, ‘bigly huge’ weapons losses. Yes, anti-air radar is part of a weapons system as much as the nearby missiles it guides. More than one such U.S. installation in the region has been hit:
Believed to be the biggest financial hit to the U.S. so far, the $1.1 billion early warning radar system at Al-Udeid Air Base was hit in a missile strike by Iran on Saturday. Qatar confirmed that the radar was struck and damaged. The air base is the biggest military base in the Middle East and hosts thousands of U.S. service personnel.
Another billion gone in a flash. During the Cold War there was a running not so funny joke in DC that ‘A billion here and a billion there and soon you’re talking about real money.’ I think we’ve reached that point within days of this war starting and the loss of that early warning system isn’t the only such loss we’ve sustained. Iranian drones made it through defense at the U.S. Naval base in Bahrain and knocked out at least two AN/GSC-52Bs, which cost around $20m to build and install. These are crucial communications systems for those not up on military hardware. Granted, forty million doesn’t seem like much given costs I’ve cited but messing up crucial communications can lead to much bigger losses.
One thing we can be certain of is that the Pentagon will try to hide loss of ground systems, especially if no one is killed or badly wounded. Eventually we’ll learn about it but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to eventually learn more has been hit than has been admitted to. For example:
On Monday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement claiming to have hit and destroyed a U.S. missile defense radar in the United Arab Emirates.
The IRGC claims they successfully targeted an AN/TPY-2 radar, which makes up part of the THAAD anti-ballistic missile system, an attack estimated to cost the US $500m.
There goes another half-billion. Then there was a strike Iran carried out on a CIA installation in Saudi Arabia where a couple of drones got through. No estimate on damages but we are of course told they are minor. Still, you know what they have at such places. Crypto gear. Not the money, the sophisticated and hugely expensive machines that monitor other’s communications and decode them, as well as other expensive machines that send and receive secure messages. It’s a safe bet plenty at that CIA site will have to be replaced.
I could keep going but I’ll toss in something else – the cost of sending such a massive fleet to the region and supplying all those ships. And the eventual added maintenance costs an accelerated operational of a month or so at war, PLUS the cost of getting and keeping people trained up before the shooting started. Billions there too.
I think it’s fair to say that upwards of ten billion has been tossed down the Iran War drain in just five days. Imagine what the final tab will be with another month of this? And, how much more still if talk today of ground forces becomes a reality?
So hit your conservatives who complain about government spending with all that. Then remind them that like Iraq the war started because a President copped an attitude and lied about the need for it. Which is fraud. And finally it’s quite likely something that will for weeks give him some breathing space on his Epstein Files mess which is abuse – of power.
All of this money and blood so Trump can simultaneously distract Americans and feel like a badass. The only thing good I can say about Vance is that if Trump succumbed to one of his many illnesses before the sun comes up is that J.D. Vance would end it and quickly. If you’ve been paying attention he’s been frozen out because he objected. At some point he might try to worm his way back into Trump’s good graces by voicing support but for now he’s on the outside looking in. With that I’ll shut up for the night.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
This is something I had been wondering about. Thank you very, very, very much!!!!!
Those astronomical numbers are unseen, hidden and largely meaningless to the average citizen. They become meaningful when compared to any of the “savings” projected from SNAP, Medicaid and others. The cost of delivering that hairy chested threat of “boots on the ground” will bring laser focus to the senselessness of this action. (Please God they have the wit to see the currently unpopular intervention will instantly become more than a tad unpopular when the body bags are repatriated in worse than Vietnam numbers.)