Sanders's Iran war numbers mostly hold up. His troop count is stale.

Too low, and out of date. The Pentagon's count has been 23 since late October: 11 hostile deaths, plus accidents (6), illness or injury (2), undetermined (1) and still under review (3).

The Pentagon's casualty database, DCAS, listed 23 deaths as of Nov. 5: 15 under Operation Epic Fury, and 8 under an "Overseas Operations" category for casualties since July 7^1,2. The six accident deaths were airmen killed in a tanker crash³.

Nineteen was the official count from late September³ until Oct. 9. It had been 18 on Sept. 3⁴. Two noncombat deaths were added Oct. 9⁵, and two on Oct. 28 and 29⁶.

In July the Pentagon cut the count from 18 to 14, citing "temporary data disruptions"³. In September the Washington Post reported more deaths than DCAS showed. Hegseth called that "a complete lie"⁵ and said "even if we wanted to attempt to hide a combat death, we never would and we never could"³. The Post's count of 22 deaths in the region adds a training death the military says wasn't tied to Iran⁵. Democrats accuse Hegseth of hiding casualties in the new category, which a Pentagon official told Military Times is used because the U.S. considers Epic Fury over⁷.

Iran's Health Ministry counted 2,362 civilians killed through April 7. Independent groups confirmed fewer: HRANA 1,701, with 714 more it couldn't classify, and Hengaw 1,030. Strikes since April have added more.

Iran's internet blackout and limits on journalists make the counts hard to check⁸. The Health Ministry's figure comes via the UN's humanitarian office, as of April 7, when a ceasefire was announced⁹. HRANA is a U.S.-based Iranian rights group, and Hengaw is based in Norway. Their tallies of all deaths, military included, are 3,636 and at least 7,650⁸.

The April ceasefire largely held, with sporadic U.S. strikes, until a June 17 deal broke down. U.S. strikes resumed June 26, and extensive airstrikes followed July 7¹⁰. After one night of U.S. strikes in September, Iran's health minister said 18 people were killed, and the Iranian Red Crescent said four died at a wedding. A Central Command spokesman said the reports came from Iranian state media and that "the U.S. military never targets civilians, unlike the IRGC"⁴. We found no full count since April.

The Pentagon told Congress in October that the war had cost $47.1 billion, mostly in munitions, not counting repairs to damaged bases. Whether it was wasted is for readers to judge.

That's an unclassified estimate reviewed by Al-Monitor. Munitions account for nearly $30 billion. The total rose $3.5 billion from mid-September and $9.6 billion since July, and it leaves out repairs to widespread damage at U.S. bases in the region¹¹.

In June the White House asked Congress for $87.6 billion in emergency money, $67.15 billion of it for the military, which the White House said was mostly for the war¹². CBO found $42.3 billion of it tied to the war¹³. As of early October Congress hadn't passed it, the services were paying for the war out of their base budgets, and Rep. Pat Ryan's No Funds for Iran War Act was gaining co-sponsors¹³. We couldn't confirm any vote since. Moody's Analytics puts the war's cost to the average household at nearly $2,000, about $1,100 of it from higher energy and transportation costs¹⁴.

Both jumped when the war began and remain well above prewar prices. Regular peaked at $4.50 in May and has fallen six weeks in a row. Diesel is 4% below its Sept. 21 peak, though it rose in late October.

Prices jumped fast. In EIA's weekly survey, regular gas averaged $2.937 a gallon the week before the war and $3.502 two weeks later. It peaked at $4.50 on May 11. Diesel went from $3.809 to a peak of $6.529 on Sept. 21^15,16.

On Nov. 2 regular was $4.153 and diesel $6.292, 41% and 65% above prewar prices, by our calculation. Diesel rose for two weeks in late October before slipping again¹⁶.

On Nov. 7, AAA had regular at $4.04, down from $4.37 a month earlier, and diesel at $6.21, down from $6.30. A year ago they were $3.08 and $3.71¹⁷.