US Bases Damage by Iran: $19.94 Billion

Reprinted from World BEYOND War : World BEYOND War has just published a new report by Mohammed M.A. Abunahel and David Swanson called The Damage Done to U.S. Bases in the War on Iran: Documenting Attacks, Assessing Damage, and Estimating Financial Losses (full report here). The estimated cost of replacing U.S. military property either completely destroyed or severely damaged by Iranian attacks, according to the calculations in the report, is $19.94 billion.

When we read cost estimates for the U.S. role in the war of $43.6 billion, we can therefore correct that to an estimated $63.5 billion — not counting economic impacts or lost opportunity costs. This report documents the damage done by Iranian attacks on both U.S. bases and on non-U.S. buildings and people in Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, Cyprus, and Israel. According to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio the United States attacked Iran because Israel was planning to attack Iran, which was understood as likely to produce Iranian attacks on U.S. bases.

Through the course of the war, the U.S. government has used the bases it has maintained thousands of miles away from the United States to describe its attacks on Iran as “defensive.” Prior to the build-up to war, over 50,000 U.S. troops occupied dozens of bases in some of the world’s most brutal dictatorships — dictatorships propped up in part by these bases. When the U.S. Congress takes up legislation to authorize more military spending, the question must be carefully addressed: how much funding will go to rebuilding bases that make wars more likely and which have a high probability of being destroyed again, and is it fair to the host nations to impose bases that not only support unpopular rulers but also turn the surrounding areas into targets?

This report should have long since been produced by the U.S. government. Independent researchers should not have to make estimates based on news reports and what scraps of information the U.S. government sees fit to make public. Secrecy, like an archipelago of foreign bases, is one factor contributing to the initiation of wars. This report is offered in hopes of shining what light it can into the darkness of U.S. war policy. Piecing together the costs to U.S. government property is not meant to distract from the massive human and property costs that this war has inflicted on the people of Iran.

Rather, it is intended to help inform the U.S. public of one small part of what its government does with its money. If you liked this article, please support Antiwar.com. We are 100% reader-supported.