Talk about blowing a hole in the budget. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060110/ts_nm/iraq_cost_dc Cost of Iraq war could top $2 trillion: study OSTON (Reuters) - The cost of the Iraq war could top $2 trillion, far above the White House's pre-war projections, when long-term costs such as lifetime health care for thousands of wounded U.S. soldiers are included, a study said on Monday. Columbia University economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes included in their study disability payments for the 16,000 wounded U.S. soldiers, about 20 percent of whom suffer serious brain or spinal injuries. They said U.S. taxpayers will be burdened with costs that linger long after U.S. troops withdraw. "Even taking a conservative approach, we have been surprised at how large they are," said the study, referring to total war costs. "We can state, with some degree of confidence, that they exceed a trillion dollars." Before the invasion, then-White House budget director Mitch Daniels predicted Iraq would be "an affordable endeavor" and rejected an estimate by then-White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey of total Iraq war costs at $100 billion to $200 billion as "very, very high." Unforeseen costs include recruiting to replenish a military drained by multiple tours of duty, slower long-term U.S. economic growth and health-care bills for treating long-term mental illness suffered by war veterans. They said about 30 percent of U.S. troops had developed mental-health problems within three to four months of returning from Iraq as of July 2005, citing Army statistics. Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 and has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, and Bilmes based their projections partly on past wars and included the economic cost of higher oil prices, a bigger U.S. budget deficit and greater global insecurity caused by the Iraq war. They said a portion of the rise in oil prices -- about 20 percent of the $25 a barrel gain in oil prices since the war began -- could be attributed directly to the conflict and that this had already cost the United States about $25 billion. "Americans are, in a sense, poorer by that amount," they said, describing that estimate as conservative. The projection of a total cost of $2 trillion assumes U.S. troops stay in Iraq until 2010 but with steadily declining numbers each year. They projected the number of troops there in 2006 at about 136,000. Currently, the United States has 153,000 troops in Iraq. HIGHER COSTS Marine Corps Lt. Col. Roseann Lynch, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said on Monday that the Iraq war was costing the United States $4.5 billion monthly in military "operating costs" not including procurement of new weapons and equipment. Lynch said the war in Iraq had cost $173 billion to date. Another unforeseen cost, the study said, is the loss to the U.S. economy from injured veterans who cannot contribute as productively as they otherwise would and costs related to American civilian contractors and journalists killed in Iraq. Death benefits to military families and bonuses paid to soldiers to re-enlist and to sign up new recruits are additional long-term costs, it said. Stiglitz was an adviser to U.S. President Bill Clinton and also served as chief economist at the World Bank.
...................and the sad part is, the real cost of this GIANT MISTAKE is actually the opportunity cost rather than the accounting cost. It astounds me to this day to how people/and/or John Kerry could be bad enough to let an admin as incompent the one that is in place continue. Astounding.
Well said. We've obliterated the hard bipartisan work of generations in just a few years and will be under this travesty for generations to come.
Imagine spending that much on education. Me and my wife just did some math. That is almost enough to send 50 MILLION people through a four year course at a university.
and we don't have to choose one 2 trillion could have been spent a lot of more important problems.. economy, health care, education, homeland/port/border/airport security, hunger, aids, etc.. but instead bush insisted on spending 2 trillion on an neocon project, oil, MIC, and revenge..
2 trillion divided by 26 million iraqis= $76,923 per one Iraqi person's freedom. If the US offered $76,000 per US citizen to give up their right to vote, how many do you think would take it? While Iraqi freedom is a good thing, can anyone, if they had that much money in 2002, honestly say that that is the first thing they would spend their money on?
What freedom? Iraqis right now are indeed free to die, free to face a possible civil war, free to continue living on a miserable life. Companies like Halliburton are free to make big money, super riches are free to get big tax cut and middle or lower classes are also free to get their benefits cut. But guess what, just less than 15 months ago, more than 50% of people asked Bush continue his great job for "four more years". Bush was freed to spend his "political capital". It made me realize that maybe majority of people living in this world are stupid.
where are the war defenders or supporters / self proclaimed "patriots" / got richer because of the war?
$2 trillion. or 2,000 billlion or 2,000,000 millions . or 20,000 100 millions. At 100 million American families, I calculate that this 20,000 per family. Mindlblowing, but I think we are financing a lot of it,so our kids and grandkids can pay for it. You're doing a heck of a job, Bushie!
plus deceased, physically injured, and mentally injured loved ones for a lot of families and what do we achieve for all those lives and money?
bigtexx/T_J are busily organizing the Jack Abramoff defense fund, so they don't have much time to post here!
I think they lost so much on the Rose Bowl that they had to suspend their internet account to pay their bookie.
