2,320 US Airstrikes, $2 Billion, And Not Much to Show for It

Destroyed Scores of US Made Tanks, Hundreds of Humvees

The Pentagon has issued a statement regarding it’s ongoing air war against ISIS today, reporting 2,320 airstrikes, and claiming the direct costs of the attacks so far were $1.83 billion.

The statement attempts to focus on big “successes” in the attack, including 73 tanks destroyed, many of them US-made M1A1 tanks, and 282 Humvees, all of them US-made.

Conspicuously absent in the war, however, is any meaningful territory gained in either Syria or Iraq, despite thousands of airstrikes. The Pentagon is rather trying to change the focus to just the stuff they blew up.

It also underscores what a wild underestimation the cost of the conflict is, since all this expensive military hardware their destroying was originally US aid to Iraq, looted by ISIS, and while is to be replaced with more US aid, with fingers crossed iraq can hold onto it this time.

Though the Pentagon didn’t show the calculations by which they came up with this number, it doubtless didn’t include the cost of replacing all the infrastructure and weapons they’re blowing up, the massive aid costs to Syrian rebels past and future, or the growing buildup of US ground troops in neighboring Kuwait.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.