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Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee are demanding that the Trump administration release official figures about the true economic costs of the war in Iran.
Lawmakers on that congressional committee were recently briefed about the war’s costs, but the administration has not made those figures public. Noting that the Congressional Budget Office estimated the war’s cost at $38 billion in September, Democrats are saying the White House should be forthright with the American people about updated numbers.
sent to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) commander Navy Admiral Brad Cooper, Democrats wrote that the “publicly disclosed costs of the war have already been tragic,” citing the fact that as many as 23 servicemembers have been killed and 861 have been wounded since the start of the conflict.
“Despite a lack of clarity and candor from [the Department of Defense], press reports of attacks, video footage, satellite images, and photos leaked to the media by active U.S. service members have painted a dire picture of U.S. bases and facilities damaged and destroyed by Iran,” the letter stated, adding that the war has also caused “significant damage to the U.S.’s critical infrastructure in the region.”
“The administration’s ongoing efforts to hide the true cost of this war are outrageous and unacceptable,” the Democrats’ letter stated. “DoD has repeatedly tried to cover up the truth about the number of service members hurt and killed since the war began and has not disclosed these deaths and injuries to the public in a timely manner.”
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The letter-writers are calling for more transparency from the administration, and a response from CENTCOM by November 2.
In a post on X, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), a member of the Armed Services Committee, reiterated her and her colleagues’ call for more information.
“Americans deserve to know how much of their money is being burned on Trump’s war with Iran,” Warren said.
Estimates vary, but one examination of household expenses by Moody’s Analytics suggests that the average family’s costs have increased by $2,000 as a result of the war. Energy prices in particular have seen monumental increases, with regular grade gasoline costs going up by 45 percent since late February.
In addition to economic costs for the U.S., the war is having a tremendously negative impact on the region’s environment, with emissions from military activities contributing to the climate crisis, bombings worsening the effects of drought and water scarcity/access in the region, and pollution threatening air quality for much of Western Asia, an analysis from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace shows. In terms of loss of life in Iran, between 3,592 and 11,410 people have been killed, and an estimated 26,500 (or more) are injured, because of the war.
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