War with Iran Exposing the Scam Military Industrial Complex

This war with Iran shows just how much of a scam our military industrial complex is. In 2024 Iran’s defense budget was $7.89 billion, while the U.S. spent $886 billion on its defense budget and gave $18.2 billion to Israel for military aid.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that the war is costing U.S. taxpayers $891.4 million per day.

Cost of Munitions

The U.S. launched more than 160 Tomahawk cruise missiles at the start of the war at the cost of $3.6 million per missile. A Tomahawk cruise missile was filmed striking an IRGC facility in the vicinity of the Minab girl’s school, which was also struck twice in a “double tap” attack, and those strikes killed 175, mostly young girls. So the evidence suggests that U.S. taxpayers spent $7.2 million dollars to murder all those school children.

CSIS estimates that in 100 hours the U.S. expended $1.5 billion in missiles and bombs targeted at Iran.

We also expended $1.7 billion on air-defense interceptor munitions and the price-tag for these are truly staggering. CSIS estimates 208 air-defense interceptors were fired in the first 100 hours of the war, that comes out to average $8 million per interceptor missile fired. This is CSIS’s midpoint estimate, their high end estimate is that we expended 462 interceptors at a cost of $3.7 billion. We don’t know how our stockpile of interceptors stand, but judging by the amount of missiles and drones that have impacted high priority targets we can safely assume that our stockpiles of interceptor missiles are not nearly enough to stop all of the threats we face. In July of 2025 The Guardian reported that the U.S. only had 25% of the stockpiles of PAC-3 Patriot missiles the Pentagon needed for Middle East operations.

7 Trillion to Private Defense Contractors Since 9/11

In 2004 KBR, Dick Cheney’s old firm and one of the main contractors in Iraq was caught overcharging for 42,000 meals per day but only serving 16,000 over 7 months, overcharging by $16m. Really small potatoes when it comes to the corruption, there’s countless ways that contractors scam tax payers, but it’s a good illustration of how rampant graft is within the military industrial complex.

KBR’s human trafficking:

In August 2008, family members of 12 men killed in Iraq and a surviving worker filed a lawsuit in US federal court against Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), a US military contractor in Iraq, and its Jordanian sub-contractor, Daoud & Partners. The action was brought under federal trafficking law and the Alien Tort Claims Act and is based on, among other things, allegations of racketeering, trafficking, forced labour, slavery and false imprisonment.

The plaintiffs claimed that the 13 men were initially recruited in Nepal to work in hotels and restaurants in Amman, Jordan. Instead, they alleged that a Daoud & Partners representative seized their passports after they arrived in Jordan, and that they were later trafficked into Iraq to work at a US military facility. Twelve of the men were killed by insurgents en route to the worksite in Iraq. The 13th man, who travelled separately, was allegedly held in Iraq for fifteen months and forced to work in a warehouse under the supervision of KBR. The plaintiffs argued that Daoud, KBR and their co-conspirators were parties to a trafficking enterprise. They further alleged that both Daoud and KBR were responsible for the trafficking scheme – from the moment of recruiting the men in Nepal until their arrival in Iraq. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/kbr-lawsuit-re-human-trafficking-in-iraq/

I wanted to highlight this story because more Americans than ever are waking to the evil of our empire. People are waking up because we’re seeing the reports of starvation, murders, forced labor, and brutality within ICE concentration camps. It’s shocking, but it’s not new. Slavery, forced labor, human trafficking has always existed and will continue to exist as long as capitalism exists, because under capitalism individuals and organizations are incentivized to reduce their labor costs by any means necessary.

In 2021 a study from Brown University titled “Profits of War: Corporate Beneficiaries of the Post-9/11 Pentagon Spending Surge”, authored by William D Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy estimated that $7 trillion went directly into the pockets of private defense contractors during the GWOT.

DOGE cut USAID, which had a yearly budget of around $23 billion, citing “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Well in 2020 alone Lockheed Martin was given $75 billion in contracts. The Harvard School of Public Health reports that the dismantling of USAID has already lead to 600,000 deaths, two thirds of them children. Lockheed Martin’s stock is up 40% in the last six months.

$3.5 trillion of that money went to only five major corporations: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. Lockheed Martin produces the PAC-3 Patriot interceptors and the THAAD interceptors. Raytheon produces the SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors and their stock is up 51.49% over the last year.

Trump met with defense contractors on the 6th and announced that they would quadruple the production of “exquisite class” weaponry.

Israel is the world’s 7th largest weapon’s exporter, exporting $14.8 billion arms in 2024. I sorted their defense companies by market cap, this is how the top 10 by market cap performed. Elbit Systems is valued at 125bn, and with a 32.7% growth in the last month that means Israel’s Elbit Systems gained $30.8 billion in value in one month, thanks to the buildup and breakout of the new war with Iran.

Woefully Inadequate Interceptor Missile Production Rate

We can only produce 96 THAAD missiles, 650 PAC-3 interceptors for the Patriot systems, and about 150 SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors for the sea based Aegis systems per year. Iran isn’t even considered a near-peer enemy. And only a week into the war we are unable to effectively defend against their $50,000 Shahed drones and $1 million ballistic missiles, which Iran can produce at a rate of 100+ per month. We’re now asking Ukraine to send anti-drone specialists and systems, oh how the turntables.

Americans have bought into the lie that our trillion dollar defense budget buys us security and global military dominance. What this war with Iran is showing is that we’re all getting scammed. We spend a trillion dollars a year on war, but can’t defend our bases from slow-flying drones? Six U.S. reserve soldiers killed in Kuwait were killed by a Shahed drone, with “no warning, no sirens.”

U.S. bases in the Gulf have been getting hit hard.

Radar destroyed at Jordan base

Satellite images taken on March 2 show debris and burn marks surrounding a radar unit belonging to a THAAD battery stationed at the base. Two large craters, each roughly four meters across, can be seen near the equipment, suggesting multiple impacts. The radar system involved is believed to be the AN/TPY-2 Radar, a highly sophisticated missile detection system manufactured by Raytheon.

Damage reported near Saudi base

Satellite images captured on March 1 show smoke rising from a compound where a radar shelter associated with a THAAD battery had previously been located. The tent-like structure used to house the radar antenna appears badly charred, and debris is scattered across the surrounding area.

UAE and Qatar installations also hit

At the Ruwais site, at least three buildings appear to have been struck between February 28 and March 1. Among the damaged structures are pull-through vehicle sheds commonly used to store radar components for THAAD batteries.

Strategic effort to weaken defenses

“The AN-TPY-2 radar is essentially the heart of the THAAD battery,” said N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of the research group Armament Research Services. “Without the radar, the system loses much of its ability to detect and track incoming ballistic missiles.”

https://politicstoday.org/radar-bases-linked-to-us-thaad-systems-hit-in-jordan-saudi-arabia-and-uae/

A single AN/TPY-2 radar costs $500 million and the U.S. is reported to have only 10 to 14 of these radar arrays worldwide. It’s already been reported that the U.S. is pulling THAAD batteries from South Korea for redeployment.

A $1.1bn AN/FPS-132 early warning radar was damaged at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in the first day of the war. This radar was critical for detecting ballistic missile launches and could see out to 5,000km.

I’m finding estimates that the U.S. has spent between 5.8 to 6.4 trillion in developing its bases and infrastructure in the Middle East since 9/11. This is enough money to cover the entirety of ACA subsidies for 51 years. It’s enough money to solve world hunger 30 times over. It’s enough money to build China’s high-speed rail system six times over. That’s enough money to provide every single unhoused person with a place to live for 75 years.

Bringing the Military Industrial Complex Scam Home

ICE is set to spend $38 billion to turn warehouses into detention facilities and their total budget in 2026 is $77 billion, ten times the entire military budget of Iran. The Wharton School of Business estimated in July of 2025 that Trump’s mass deportation program will cost $70,236 per deportee.

In January I wrote about how a Trump donor who regularly attends Mar-a-lago events is one of the primary beneficiaries of the $1.24bn Texas Ft. Bliss mega detention center. The LA Times reported on March 8th that the concentration camp guards are placing bets on which detainee would be the next to commit suicide. This is the same facility, Camp East Montana, where witnesses reported that 55 year old Geraldo Lunas Campos was choked to death by guards on January 3rd. The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide yet no one has been charged with his murder.

War is a Racket

We’ve reached the inevitable end-stage of crony capitalism where people have figured out the easiest way to make money is to simply pull scams. You don’t need to build an actual adequate supply of high-tech interceptor rockets, just keep citing cost overruns and material shortages and increase the price per unit. It’s much easier than actually producing the armament and equipment our troops need to stay alive.

When the Soviet Union fell, the insiders looted the carcass. That’s what we are witnessing in the United States. The empire is collapsing, and the rats are picking the bones clean. The Trump family has now personally profited over $4 billion dollars since he’s been back in office. In February, UAE Royals invested $500 million in the Trump family crypto company, acquiring a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial.

The federal government is paying masked, armed men a six-figure salary to kidnap hard-working immigrants, many of whom have lived in the country for decades, at a cost of $70,236 per deportee. Oil hit $120 a barrel this morning, the skies over Tehran are black because of burning oil, and tens of millions in the Gulf face the threat of losing the desalinization plants necessary for their survival.

Why? Because capitalism’s one and only goal is to amass more capital. It doesn’t care about human rights, or dead children. It doesn’t care about climate change or the environment. Profit is king. And if the Epstein class psychopaths in charge decide that there is profit to be extracted from nuking Iran, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.

Iran isn’t even considered a near-peer adversary, and we can’t even stop their slow-flying drones from destroying our expensive radar systems. War is a racket.

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

― Smedley D. Butler, War Is a Racket