Economist: Don't Listen to Hegseth, Trump's Iran War Will Cost 'Very Possibly Trillions'
"University of Michigan professor Justin Wolfers on Friday joined a growing number of economists and other critics casting down on what he called 'the Pentagon’s lowball $25 billion estimate' for the cost of President Donald Trump’s illegal war on Iran."
"While testifying before Congress last week alongside US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Pentagon comptroller Jules 'Jay' Hurst offered the $25 billion figure. However, experts have responded with raised eyebrows. Stephen Semler, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, estimated that the government spent at least $71.8 billion during the first two months of the war, or around $1.2 billion each day."
"As the threat of more US bombings of Iran loomed, Wolfers wrote Friday in a New York Times opinion piece that 'the Pentagon’s stated number reflects only a narrow accounting of the tab that Operation Epic Fury is running up. It’s the price of the more than 2,000 Tomahawk and Patriot missiles already fired, the warplanes already flown and in some cases lost, and the rest of the gear already chewed through. It does not measure the true cost of the war—including the human toll.' "
“ 'Since the start of the war, oil markets have been disrupted, consumer confidence has cratered, the global economy is groaning, and military budgets are growing,' the economist continued. 'The toll from this upheaval must be counted in lives disrupted, jobs lost, companies shut down (see: Spirit Airlines), and the income and output sacrificed. The less easily quantified costs—death, disability, and mental health—could become much more dramatic should President Trump send troops into Iran, which still can’t be ruled out.' "
Continued at link:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/cost-of-iran-war
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