Open Source Iran War Cost Tracker: 45.7B | Hacker News Reader

Open Source Iran War Cost Tracker: 45.7B

iranwarcost.com

50 pointskoverda20 comments

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.

Thank you for the feedback, I'll take it into account. Much appreciated!

It would be interesting, but admittedly difficult, to have a comparative scale of what could have been achieved if the money had been used to hire more teachers, set up universal healthcare, reduce overcrowding in prisons, provide shelters and food for the homeless, subsidise doctors to work in places where no-one can afford medical care... In other words "at this point you could have provided shelter for every homeless person; at this point you could have halved the crowding in prisons; at this point ...".

You mean instead of the war?

These are really two different costs, hardly comparable. And both useful (if it ends up with a true liberation of the Iranians)

"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

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-...

Pretty certain from this that it's a US asset: https://www.wpafb.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/111460...

Thanks for your link! The text seems to indicate the equipment is Qatar-owned: “The foreign military sale agreement, signed Dec. 7, 2016, requested AFLCMC provide the radar itself and associated mission support facilities at a remote location in Qatar.”

For context, in the case of foreign military sales, the US government usually buys the equipment from its suppliers, then resells it to the foreign government.

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

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?

Mine seems to be a bit more focused and comprehensive on the financial expenditures by the US government, and open source. Also iran-cost-ticker.com seems to be "on hold" when i visit it.

> Also iran-cost-ticker.com seems to be "on hold" when i visit it.

That is certainly a difference between the two sites. :) (In my defense, I hadn't visited since yesterday.)

For the record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

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

There were many many milestones that are relevant to the current war.

- Proxy war waged by Iran in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Qasem_Soleima...

Arguably the bombing of IRGC meeting in the consulate-adjacent structure was not really "direct conflict". It was Iran firing missiles at Israel that was the first real direct conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2024_Iranian_strikes_on_...

Also if we want to split hairs Iran attacked Israel's embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Buenos_Aires_Israeli_emba...

"In April 2024, Argentina's second highest court ruled that the Iranian government was responsible for the bombing, and that it was carried out in retaliation for Argentina reneging on agreements to transfer nuclear material to Iran. The ruling also characterized Iran as a terrorist state"

In your last point, wasn't that just Miley pandering to the US and Israel ?

Bombing an Embassy/Consulate is a direct attack on sovereign territory according to international law, so technically Israel started first, but I agree, it's splitting hair, both sides attacked each other in various ways, via proxies, sabotage, killing scientists, economic damages, sanctions long before any of this happened.

That was an Argentinian court so I'm not sure the government matters. Also there is other evidence of Iran's involvement. Not to mention countless other attacks on Israel proper and Israelis.

I don't think it's clear from an international law perspective. I remember reading the Vienna Convention and not really finding anything specific and my attempts to read it now and use AI to figure it out aren't yielding anything.

The status of the embassy or consulate is generally considered to be an agreement between the host and guest countries. It is not considered territory of the sending country at all.

Anyways, as we said this is mostly splitting hairs. Israel had really no grievance with Iran and no reason to act or attack it before Iran decided that destroying Israel is one of its goals. In the kindergarten game of "who started" it was clearly Iran, no doubt about that.

That only works if you treat Iran’s proxies as unrelated actors.

Hamas (Oct 7), Hezbollah on the northern border, the Houthis in the Red Sea, Iraqi militias hitting U.S. bases — that’s been Iran’s strategy for decades.

April 2024 may have been the first direct exchange, but the war with Iran’s proxy system was already underway.

Hezbollah and Hamas are friendly with Iran but they very much have their own reasons for attacking Israel. Handwaving that as "Iran's proxies" is motivated reasoning.

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

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