“For every day of this conflict, $2 billion is being spent. My overall goal for a very focused plan to save 87 million lives is $23 billion. We could have funded that in less than two weeks of this reckless war. Now, of course, we can’t,” Fletcher said, according to The Guardian.
The $2 billion a week that Donald Trump was spending on his war on Iran could have saved more than 87 million lives, the head of the UN humanitarian agency, Tom Fletcher, said on Monday.
He also warned that normalising violent language, such as threats to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age”, is very dangerous, as it encourages any autocratic leader to use similar threats and tactics, including the destruction of civilians and civilian infrastructure. Fletcher, a former British diplomat and foreign policy adviser to several successive prime ministers, also accused British politicians of creating a “firing squad” for more than 10 years, which has left the UK in a “defensive position”. He said the scale of recent cuts to British aid has been so great that people laugh at conferences when the UK claims to be a leader in this area.
Fletcher, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator and head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is facing a funding crisis he described as “cataclysmic,” representing a 50% cut in his budget.
This, he said, is being driven not only by the US but also by international cuts in foreign aid, dictated by a mix of ideology and demands from defence budgets. He said the war in Iran was having a ripple effect across the globe and predicted that, with food and fuel inflation approaching 20%, “we will feel the impact for years in sub-Saharan Africa and East Africa, pushing many more people into poverty.” “For every day of this conflict, $2 billion is being spent. My overall target for a very focused plan to save 87 million lives is $23 billion. We could have funded that in less than two weeks of this reckless war. Now, of course, we can’t,” Fletcher said, according to The Guardian.
Fletcher’s budget is about $10 billion short of his $23 billion target.