The opportunity costs of the Iraq war are staggering and will haunt the US for a generation. Iraq war 'caused slowdown in the US' Peter Wilson, Europe correspondent | February 28, 2008 THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US 3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003. Australia also faced a real bill much greater than the $2.2billion in military spending reported last week by Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston, Professor Stiglitz said, pointing to higher oil prices and other indirect costs of the wars. Professor Stiglitz told the Chatham House think tank in London that the Bush White House was currently estimating the cost of the war at about $US500 billion, but that figure massively understated things such as the medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen. The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said. The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit. "The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said. That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said. Professor Stiglitz, an academic at the Columbia Business School and a former economic adviser to president Bill Clinton, said a further $US500 billion was going to be spent on the fighting in the next two years and that could have been used more effectively to improve the security and quality of life of Americans and the rest of the world. The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world, he said. Just a few days' funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered, he said. The public had been encouraged by the White House to ignore the costs of the war because of the belief that the war would somehow pay for itself or be paid for by Iraqi oil or US allies. "When the Bush administration went to war in Iraq it obviously didn't focus very much on the cost. Larry Lindsey, the chief economic adviser, said the cost was going to be between $US100billion and $US200 billion - and for that slight moment of quasi-honesty he was fired. "(Then defence secretary Donald) Rumsfeld responded and said 'baloney', and the number the administration came up with was $US50 to $US60 billion. We have calculated that the cost was more like $US3 trillion. "Three trillion is a very conservative number, the true costs are likely to be much larger than that." Five years after the war, the US was still spending about $US50billion every three months on direct military costs, he said. Professor Stiglitz and another Clinton administration economist, Linda Bilmes, have produced a book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, pulling together their research on the true cost of the war, which does not include the cost to Iraq. One of the greatest discrepancies is that the official figures do not include the long-term healthcare and social benefits for injured servicemen, who are surviving previously fatal attacks because of improved body armour. "The ratio of injuries to fatalities in a normal war is 2:1. In this war they admitted to 7:1 but a true number is (something) like 15:1." Some 100,000 servicemen have been diagnosed with serious psychological problems and the soldiers doing the most tours of duty have not yet returned. Professor Stiglitz attributed to the Iraq war $US5-$US10 of the almost $US80-a-barrel increase in oil prices since the start of the war, adding that it would have been reasonable to attribute more than $US35 of that rise to the war. He said the British bill for its role in the war was about 20 times the pound stg. 1billion ($2.1 billion) that former prime minister Tony Blair estimated before the war. The British Government was yesterday ordered to release details of its planning for the war, when the country's Information Commissioner backed a Freedom of Information request for the minutes of two cabinet meetings in the days before the war. Commissioner Richard Thomas said that because of the importance of the decision to go to war, the public interest in disclosing the minutes outweighed the public interest in withholding the information. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html
Cost of Iraq War per minute: $238,245.00 Cost of Iraq War per day: $343 million Cost of Iraq War per week: $2.4 billion Cost of Iraq war per month: $10.3 billion Estimated costs for the remainder of Bush's term: $111,926,232,000 http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/policy/securityspending/articles/gwot_spending_burn_rate/
as long as we get their oil... We can't run cars on poor people, LOLOLOL - I stole this joke from a comedian.
Damn, that country should be way more awesome for that amount of money Mother-effer better start lookin' like Dubai pretty soon if they know what's good for 'em
About 2/3 of the American people think the war was a mistake. I wonder if anyone has polled the Iraqis. I bet an even higher number would think that the war was a mistake as the country is in much worse shape than before the war. Rebuilding some of the schools, bridges, roads that we destroyed is not going to win hearts and minds very quickly. Obama wants to pull out and stop putting more money into the mistake. McCain if anything wants to spend even more money therebye compounding the waste.
It didn't cause the housing bubble. That was well underway and was aided by Greenspan's interest rate cuts.
But for that insane amount of money they could have fixed SS or Medicare or Fund free eduction for all college kids for decades.
I'm willing to say that wiping illiteracy would actually do more good for United States in terms of terrorist threats than a war would. Some of these terrorist are just too plain uneducated (i.e. stupid) to understand the illegitimacy of suicide attacks.
Most of those guys who do these suicide attacks outside the middle east are smart guys. The guy who tried to do bombing in UK had an MS. This war needs to end today.
Not a bad point at all. This country would never have spent all those funds for that purpose, but it could have spent a decent portion of it for worldwide illiteracy programs and done a tremendous amount of good. Pretty sad when small European nations spend a much higher percentage of their budgets towards non-military foreign aid than we do. Impeach Bush.
In general, people hate taxes and politicians claim we don't have money to lower taxes. There's a culture of resistance against the government giving "handouts" or "charity" to Americans who could use it. Also tied to that culture is the fear of a "big uncontrollable government". So the same party who helps encourage that culture cynically decides that the only way they can get what they want, more spending and more government powers, is to ramp up the fear premium and funnel down decision making into two uncompromisable choices: a)spend outrageous money to kill our enemies and to protect ourselves or b)die miserably like liberal cowards.
We wouldn't have spent that money on anything else since our government didn't have it to spend in the first place. So with the continued weakness of the dollar, I don't see how we can continue to fund our trade and federal deficits by printing money since before long, no one is going to want worthless greenbacks anymore. So what if our government is bankrupted, and we find out later that was the intent of al qaeda all along? This administration suuucks. Good reading, I'm sure: Impostor-George-Bankrupted-America-Betrayed
I agree with this post as well, Cohen. My wife and I thought about taking our two kids to Europe last summer, but thought the weak dollar made the trip a bit steep. Still almost did it and now regret our decision not to go. The dollar is getting rediculous. I'm old enough to remember when the dollar was worth something. An example... I stayed in a room on the second floor of a small, family run place on Mykonos (beautiful Greek island, for those who don't know) for 50 cents a night. It had a balcony that looked out at the waves crashing on the shore, white washed inside and out. For a dollar, I had roasted chicken, potatoes, and a Greek salad at a family run eatery. Less than a dollar got a liter of house wine in a carafe. It was heaven. A Japanese fashion shoot was taking place during the week in the village square. I sat at a table drinking vino and watched. The photographer had 3 assistants helping him, barking out commands. They replaced lenses, they moved light reflectors. A stunning model was being shot who had a hair stylist working on her and two makeup people. It was a riot! I finally got up during one of their breaks and asked one of them why they were shooting there, since they weren't really moving around for background shots (photography is a hobby of mine). They said they had flown there from Japan to shoot facial shots for makeup products because of the light! What a trip. Today? It would cost a bloody fortune to have that experience. Sure, it was over 35 years ago (and things are quite different today), which is a lifetime to many of you, I'm sure, but I still have vivid memories of it, and of the people I met (and the girls! ) It was during Vietnam and I had some great conversations about it. Probably not too different, in some respects, from what an American might have today. The war was seen as an obvious blunder. The French had gone there and failed, so why were we stupid enough to follow them? They hated the deaths and maiming of innocent civilians. They thought Johnson was nuts. Sound familiar? But underlying it all was the Cold War. At least they understood why we might have gotten involved, even if they thought it was stupid. Today? I bet you would have a hard time finding a European that thought there was a good, basic underlying reason to invade and occupy Iraq. They have to be bewildered by the policies of Bush. The Europeans I've talked to here and in Mexico (where we ended up on vacation) certainly felt that way. That Bush was a madman. Reckless and busy destroying America's reputation abroad. Ruining our economy, and hurting their own, with his crazy policies. C'est la vie! Impeach Bush before the UAE Buys America!
