The Pentagon tells Congress the first six days of the Iran war cost $11.3 billion.

Hon. Wednesday afternoon. Pentagon. Closed-door briefing. The Defense Department officials sat down with a bipartisan group of senators in a secure room on Capitol Hill and showed them the number.

The number, hon, was eleven point three billion dollars. Six days. The cost of the first six days of the war the President says is almost over is eleven point three billion dollars. That is one point eight billion per day. That is roughly seventy-eight million per hour. That is roughly thirteen hundred dollars per second the war has been on.

Hon. Now I want you to picture the map of West Texas, where I work. There is a town called Pecos. The town of Pecos has twelve thousand people. The annual budget of the town of Pecos, by the city’s own published numbers, is about forty million dollars. The cost of the war, in the first six days, is two hundred and eighty Pecoses.

The figure, hon, does not include the cost of replacing the munitions. The munitions, on the briefing slides, on the line called expended, include several hundred Tomahawks. Each Tomahawk is, on the Navy’s own published unit cost, about one and a half million dollars. The line called expended will be the line called replaced on the next quarterly defense appropriation. The replacement, hon, is not in the eleven point three billion. The replacement is in the bill that will come due in May.

The figure, hon, does not include the combat losses either. The three F-15Es the Kuwaitis shot down on day three are not in the eleven point three billion. The bases hit by Iranian missiles in Bahrain, Qatar, and Iraq are not in the eleven point three billion. The carrier wear and the fuel and the contractor support are not in the eleven point three billion. The eleven point three billion is, by the briefing’s own framing, the low estimate.

The Press Secretary, the next morning, did not address the eleven point three billion at the briefing. The Press Secretary, the next morning, said the war was achieving objectives faster than anticipated. That is the standard sentence the Press Secretary says when asked about a hard number. The hard number, hon, is eleven point three billion. The standard sentence is six words.

You ever notice how the administrations that say they are cutting waste are always running the most expensive wars? The expensive war, hon, is the war. The cutting waste is the line on the press release. They are not the same thing.

Senator after senator, hon, on the way out of the briefing, said some version of we have not been told the actual number. The actual number is the number that includes the things the briefing did not include. The actual number, by every analyst’s count this week, is somewhere north of fifteen billion for the same six days.

The administration, on the day of the briefing, was advertising no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, the new IRS withholding estimator, the small refund increase over last year. The small refund increase, hon, was three hundred and forty-six dollars. The eleven point three billion is thirty-two million times the refund increase.

You ever try to square a thirty-two-million-times gap on the same fact sheet?

Funny how that works.