The rising economic cost of the Iraq war ($600 billion by 2010)

[Barrett808]

By Peter Grier, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Thu May 19, 4:00 AM ET

WASHINGTON - Fighting in Iraq has been prolonged and remains intense enough that it has pushed the total cost of US military operations since Sept. 11, 2001, close to that of the Korean War.

Despite the yawning federal deficit, Congress hasn't blinked at this price. And while annual defense spending is now as high as it ever was during the Reagan buildup, the US economy as a whole is much larger, making it easier, in economic terms, for the nation to shoulder the bill.

Yet the costs for Pentagon operations are likely to pile up in years ahead. By 2010, war expenses might total $600 billion, according to the

Congressional Budget Office. Much depends on when - and how many - US military personnel can be withdrawn from the Iraqi theater of operations.

"We can't be any more certain about the trend of the defense budget than we can be about the number of troops that will be deployed overseas," says Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

(more)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/csm/20050519/ts_csm/awarcost

[whistle]

1. $87 billion every six months plus the regular commitment on Iraq

....by the military. I've heard as much as $700 billion spent so far although the official claim is that Iraq has cost only $165 billion. I don't believe the official cost reports at all. I do think the truth is somewhere between $350 billion and the extreme $700 billion, but if it were possible to know the truth, I'm sure everyone would be shocked and awed!

America is going to be a very different country as the result of Bush's War, economically, politically, socially and morally, when the truth is finally acknowledged.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

2. The real story here is

to ask; how many college educations could be financed by this amount of money? How many high schools, middle schools, elementary and pre-school's could provide classes in art, music and so on with this money? How many children could be inoculated against all the usual diseases with this money? How many senior citizens could live without worrying about heat, food and medicine bills with this amount of money? These questions could go on and on. The real business of government is collecting and allocating assets of the private and corporate population. It is glaringly evident this administration is concerned only with providing business opportunities to its cronies. The lives lost are only a cost of doing business. The average citizen is nothing more than a commodity........

[chlamor]

3. To Find Out Go To- This is What They Are Buying With YOUR Taxes

www.costofwar.com

Instead, we could have provided
8,277,695
students four-year scholarships at public universities .

Instead, we could have built
1,537,464
additional housing units .

Instead, we could have hired
2,959,159
additional public school teachers for one year.

Instead, we could have fully funded global anti-hunger efforts for
7
years.



http://www.warresisters.org/leaflets.htm

[Raster]

6. not to mention how many alternative fuel and conservation

initiatives could we have funded to help wean ourselves off of using so much foreign oil?

[Inland]

4. But NOBODY could EVER HAVE PREDICTED blah blah blah blah

blah blah surprise blah blah insurgency blah blah UN pulled out blah blah coalition blah blah blah. Nope, nobody could ever have predicted it would cost this much or last that long.

[davekriss]

5. Lot's of people predicted $600 billion

I'm one of them. This from 2 posts I made at U75 around May 2003:

Quote:

Originally posted by nala1917
Halliburton, anyone?

What editor might be forgetting is "The American Way" -- which is to socialize the costs while privatizing the profits. Sure, the American taxpayer is paying, now, $166 billion for Bush's Folly (the $79b already budgeted plus the $87b which just passed the Senate last night). But... I've got to run to catch a plane, so let me make use of an email I hastily dashed off to some friends...

"Here's a nice idea (see article below): Have all those who were in favor of the Iraqi Invasion pay the $166 billion price tag, reducing the taxes imposed on the rest of us. Wesley Clark and General Zinni both said, prior to the war, that we will need to occupy Iraq for a decade. Since it's costing us $4b a month, that would be an additional $480 billion. So the total war bill, after 10 years, comes to $646 billion. Note that the cost to contain Hussein by imposing sanctions, the no-fly zones, and anti-proliferation programs amounted to $4 billion PER YEAR. The difference: $606 billion.

"Note also that we very successfully contained Hussein since 1991 (as evidenced by the fact that he invaded no one since 1990, had not used WMD against anyone since 1988, and had zero WMD in 2003). So why did we need to go to war? Answer: Greed.

"As in the Reagan years, the American people should get wise to how our Repuplithug "lootocracy" works and then act to stop the bleeding. The Republithugs: (1) Cut taxes on the very rich. (2) Run huge deficits. (3) Blow up weapons on defenseless countries so we have to replenish inventories with taxpayers’ money. A very thin sliver of the American people win and win big. Here's how...

"The majority of the $646b that flows from the taxpayers to fund this idiotic war go to just a handful of closely owned firms: e.g., Haliburton (Cheney), Bechtel (Bush), various wholly owned subsidiaries of the privately held Carlyse Group (Bush, Rumsfeld), and (OK) about a half dozen other widely held major ordinance and logistics suppliers. Note the names associated with the first three firms. They skim a substantial cash flow, just like the mafia in Vegas of days-gone-by; their owners' pay less taxes; they therefore keep a substantial sum of the skim as a direct result of Bush tax-and-war policies. No wonder they've already given Bush something like $240 million to get re-elected (compared to, say, Dean's $7 million). Small price to pay for such a beneficent largesse!

"Moreover, the top 1% (Bush's constituency) owns more than half of all domestically-owned federal debt instruments. The Bush deficits will need to be funded. Those now with substantial additional funds (tax cuts, war skim) snap up Treasury bonds and bills, securing for themselves additional skim from future taxpayers.

"Meanwhile we had the WSJ posting trial-balloon editorials last summer saying that the middle class and poor are not paying their fair share in taxes. Skim the tax flow, shift the burden -- PIRATES AND LOOTOCRATS, ALL!

"Great racket if ya can get in; pretty dismal for we 279,999,000 American citizens left holding the bills...

-----------------------------------

Quote:

Originally posted by Johnny Canuck2
Surely the wages of the 150,000 soldiers stationed in Iraq, figures into the total cost, not to mention the cost to the support people back home, etc etc. It doesn't all go to Halliburton.

That email I used to convey the notion of "lootocracy" and the Republithug Skim was dashed off in anger after reading the article attached to it (but not reposted here). It's sloppy, jc. The article makes the Swiftian proposal that the war supporters pay the tab, not the resisters. I am not proposing that here. I mean to point attention to the "skim".

Yes, most of that $646 billion cycles through the soldiers' pay, the factory workers in plants in the U.S. that produce smart bombs, the consultants that recommend rebuilding strategies -- i.e., does not end up in Haliburton's, Becthel's, and the Carylse Group's executives' pockets. But I speak of the skim.

What this illegal and unnecessary war does is redirect huge present and future taxpayer cash flows toward sectors of the economy where the BFEE and its small coterie of friends have the opportunity to do inordinately well.

Note the analogy to the Vegas casino of day's gone buy. Hundreds of millions flowed through the casinos from the pockets of gamblers ("taxpayers") to the dealers, pit bosses, floor managers -- and the food service workers, cleaning crews, and construction workers. Every time dollars exchange hands, something happens, "value" is created -- an increased velocity of cash flow thus puts food on the table for many, and a casino and a war are two ways to increase the velocity of cash flow (neither are the best way).

However, in Vegas of old someone would quietly carry in a couple of suitcases into the count rooms every night and exit with cash for powerful "friends" -- i.e., the skim. That is precisely what's going on with the billions in non-competed contracts awarded to the Bush coterie. A casino skim, and this time those who benefit don't have names like "Johnny two-fingers" and "Tony no-bones", but "Poppy" and "Pickles", the friendly face of the BFEE and cabal.

This sort of thing routinely happens in USG client states where we prop up ultra-right wing regimes and, with them, their thin slivers of upper class. They skim the cash flow for themselves, provided and/or enabled by us (again the American taxpayer), while repressing the flourishing of democracy in their nations thought to be uncontrollable by Washington. What Bush has done is brought this home to America. As I've often said, I think it is telling that Bush appointed Abrams, Reich, Negroponte, Poindextor, and other architects of the American Holocaust in Central America to positions of power again -- its the "Latin Americanization of America". I see it at work in many ways.

(Goodbye middle-class! Hello emerging, powerful rentier class! Feudal Capitalism, GHWB's "New World Order" -- and we the serfs of the new age!)

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. We will have our asses handed to us in Iraq way before 2010

but they will spend 600 billion between now and when we get kicked out anyway.