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Open Source Iran War Cost Tracker: 45.7B

47 points by koverda

by legitster

2 subcomments

Some problems:
- The Aid package is not immediately spent all at once. It authorizes up to $26 billion, but the CBO estimates it may take all the way into 2033 to claim the money.
- To that end, a lot of these costs are double counted. It's including the bill that authorizes these expenses, and then those expenses all in the same calculation.
More realistically, the $6.5M/day in theater operations for a Carrier Strike Group is probably pretty accurate (In reality, they already cost the US about $30M/day just operate normally). The flyaway costs for the Tomahawk missiles are going to be about $1M each (a lot of price estimates include the R&D costs divided per units).
In reality, the cost of a 60 day war with Iran using current methods at our current loss rates will get you closer to about $8-12B total cost. Which is still a lot more more incrementally accurate.

by SegfaultSeagull

0 subcomment

"Estimated US military spending since April 20, 2024, the day Congress passed $26.38B in emergency security assistance for Israel. "
In April 2024, Congress passed a $95.3 billion national-security supplemental package that included funding for Ukraine, Israel, and Indo-Pacific security. The Israel portion totaled about $26.38 billion.
Key points about that money:
Total Israel-related funding: about $26.38B. Humanitarian aid: roughly $9.15B (for civilians affected by conflicts, including Gaza). Missile defense: about $5.2B for systems like Iron Dome and David’s Sling. Weapons procurement: about $3.5B for new weapons. Other military supplies/services: about $4.4B.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/whats-us-houses-foreign-aid... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Law_118-50

by nickff

1 subcomments

I was curious about the (AN/FPS-132) radar, which is a significant cost-driver, and have come away unsure as to whether it was a US-asset (which seems to be what this website is tracking). Qatar seems to have ordered one of these radars, and I can't see any record of the US installing one of its own at the facility in question, but it is not clear (to me) who owns this unit, though it seems most likely to be Qatar. Additionally, the widely-circulated image of the 'destroyed' radar appears to be 'fake', with satellite images showing less-than-catastrophic damage:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-fake-image-de...
https://www.news18.com/world/iran-destroyed-uss-1-1-billion-...

by koverda

1 subcomments

I made a site a couple of days ago to track the cost of the iran war. It's open source, feel free to submit a PR or open an issue: https://github.com/koverda/iranwarcost.com

by diath

0 subcomment

by nerdyadventurer

0 subcomment

Commenters here calculating expenses, this money could have gone to healthcare of people, not to mention lives lots.

by WalterGR

1 subcomments

Different tracker, but also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47237080
Iran War Cost Tracker (iran-cost-ticker.com) 312 points | 23 hours ago | 440 comments
How does yours compare to that one?

by JohnTHaller

2 subcomments

The modern Iran War began in April 2024 when Israel bombed Iran's consulate in Syria, marking the first direct conflict between the countries.