(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) The cost of the US war with Iran was not included in President Donald Trump’s request for a massive $1.5 trillion military budget for 2027, according to a Pentagon budget official.
“This budget was formulated, honestly, before we went into conflict with Iran,” Jules Hurst III, the Pentagon’s acting chief financial officer, told reporters on April 21, according to USA Today.
The record-shattering budget is a nearly 50% increase over this year’s $1 trillion budget, but the Trump administration is going to ask Congress for even more military spending to make up for depleted weapons and other military operations related to the Iran war.
Initial reports said the administration was planning to request $200 billion for the war, but the number may be revised down to $80 billion or $100 billion. Russell Vought, the director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), told lawmakers last week that he didn’t have a “ballpark” estimate to share.
An Iran war cost tracker using the minimum conservative estimates says that since the US-Israeli war against Iran was launched on February 28, it has cost the US more than $60 billion. In just the first six days of the war, the cost in munitions alone was $11.3 billion.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
