Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

CASUALTY OF WAR: THE U.S. ECONOMY
James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, July 17, 2005



The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost taxpayers $314 billion, and the Congressional Budget Office projects additional expenses of perhaps $450 billion over the next 10 years.

That could make the combined campaigns, especially the war in Iraq, the most expensive military effort in the last 60 years, causing even some conservative experts to criticize the open-ended commitment to an elusive goal. The concern is that the soaring costs, given little weight before now, could play a growing role in U.S. strategic decisions because of the fiscal impact.

"Osama (bin Laden) doesn't have to win; he will just bleed us to death," said Michael Scheuer, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA who led the pursuit of bin Laden and recently retired after writing two books critical of the Clinton and Bush administrations. "He's well on his way to doing it."

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, has estimated that the Korean War cost about $430 billion and the Vietnam War cost about $600 billion, in current dollars. According to the latest estimates, the cost of the war in Iraq could exceed $700 billion.

Put simply, critics say, the war is not making the United States safer and is harming U.S. taxpayers by saddling them with an enormous debt burden, since the war is being financed with deficit spending.

One of the most vocal Republican critics has been Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who said the costs of the war -- many multiples greater than what the White House had estimated in 2003 -- are throwing U.S. fiscal priorities out of balance.

"It's dangerously irresponsible," Hagel said in February of the war spending.

He later told U.S. News & World Report, "The White House is completely disconnected from reality." He added that the apparent lack of solid plans for defeating the insurgency and providing stability in Iraq made it seem "like they're just making it up as they go along."

The Democrats have also raised concerns about the apparent lack of an exit strategy and the fast-rising costs, particularly since President Bush has chosen to pay for the war with special supplemental appropriations outside the normal budget process. Some Democrats have insisted that, to cover war costs, the president should propose comparable reductions in other government programs, in part to be fiscally responsible and in part to make the price of the war more tangible.

"We are not going to be stinting in our support of our troops," said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., a senior member of both the Budget and Armed Services committees. "The least we can do is make sure they have everything they need to do the job. On the other hand, we need to understand the long-term costs. We need to know it to make honest budgets.

"Are there trade-offs we can make to pay for this? We have to look at that. This has been longer-lasting and more intense than anybody anticipated."

Some conservative experts outside Congress also have started questioning whether the war and its uncertain conclusion are worth the cost, in money and blood.

"The objective has always been to install a friendly government," said Charles V. Peña, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, a libertarian think tank. "Are the costs worth that? No, because it's not something we can accomplish for the long term. It's just going to continue to drain the American taxpayer. I don't see how it's going to get better. It's only going to get worse."

James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow for national security and homeland security at the Heritage Foundation, which supports the president on most matters, warned that the war's costs would only rise because of the growing need to repair and replace battered military equipment, from helicopters to Humvees. In addition, the rising death toll is making it harder for the military to recruit new soldiers, and long deployments are hurting the morale of National Guard and reserve units sent to Iraq.

If the White House does not increase military spending, Carafano warned, the United States could end up with both a looming disaster in Iraq and a weaker military.

"I don't think we're going to have enough money to run this military based on what they're asking for," said Carafano. "If you don't increase spending, you can hollow out the military."

He added that the war itself increasingly looks like a bad investment: "I think there is a point of diminishing returns in Iraq. There is a point where you're just throwing money at the problem. Quite frankly, I think we're at the tipping point."

Since the shooting war in Iraq began in March, 2003, 1,763 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and at least 13,336 have been wounded, according to data collected by the Iraq Index, which is assembled by the Brookings Institution in Washington.

In September 2002, the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan research arm of Congress, estimated that the war would cost $1.5 billion to $4 billion per month. In fact, it costs between $5 billion and $8 billion per month.

The Pentagon says the "burn rate" -- the operating costs of the wars --

has averaged $5.6 billion per month in the current fiscal year, but that does not include some costs for maintenance and replacement of equipment and some training and reconstruction costs, experts say.

According to an analysis by the Democratic staff of the House Budget Committee, from the beginning of the war in March, 2003, through the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, the Bush administration has received a total of $314 billion in special appropriations for the wars.

Unlike the Persian Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, the U.S. has had to bear nearly all this war's costs on its own. The Congressional Research Service reported that, as of early June, 26 countries had military forces in Iraq, but they make up a small fraction of the U.S. troop levels, about 140, 000; another 11 countries have already left Iraq.

Just for the current fiscal year, the administration has received $107 billion in special appropriations, about $87 billion of which is directly related to military operations, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Most of the remainder has been spent on training and equipping Iraqi forces.

U.S. taxpayers must also cover other costs. For instance, the United States is spending $658 million to construct an embassy in Baghdad, which, with initial operating costs, could bring the expense of this super-secure facility to nearly $1.3 billion by the time it opens in several years.

"Two years ago, no one expected the war would take this long," said Steven Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "On a per-troop basis, this war has been far more costly than expected, almost double the estimates."

Edward Luttwak, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former military consultant to both Republican and Democratic administrations, said the unexpectedly high costs show inappropriate military priorities in Iraq. He said too much is being spent on operating high-tech weaponry, such as jet fighters and naval battle groups, and not enough on troops, which are best at fighting elusive insurgents. That just further proves that the U.S. military, Luttwak said, is the best on earth at fighting conventional wars, but one of the worst at policing and counterinsurgencies.

For example, he noted that heavy Air Force fighters, such as the F-15E, are being used for aerial reconnaissance, when cheaper aircraft might work better. He questioned why a huge Navy battle group, including an aircraft carrier, is stationed near Iraq, when it offers little help in fighting a largely hidden insurgency in Iraq's towns and cities.

"It's quite important to look at the costs of the war, quite apart from counting the money, which is substantial," Luttwak said. "It is a good way to assess what is going on. It's not worth the price of what we're paying."



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E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchronicle.com

I'm convinced that if we pulled out now, the violence would lessen in Iraq to almost nothing.

It truly seems that it's us there, that is inciting all this "terror".
I mean, it's visibly evident to me.

And I believe it's true, that Al Quaida's very strategy is to wear us down financially as well as militarily..which it seems, frighteningly, is happening.
I read an article somewhere where they are recruiting vietnam vets now! good grief. I suppose as long as someone will go, we will have this war continue.

Patience is certainly powerful, whether virtuous or not, and in America we are gloriously notorious for having no patience and look where it has gotten us.

We jumped the guns and wmds didn't we? How long will it be before we can admit it and clean that up? Can we live through this pillage and blunder in our very name? Or will George and Rove, in their christian based ego mightiness drive us all into the ground? Literally.

Great read Zlatko. Thanks for posting it, and the others you put here too. I've learned alot from them, and continue to do so.
As most of you know my economics went down to zero almost the minute this war started, so this is very interesting indeed......I wouldn't wish what i've been through on anyone, cept maybe, Bush and Rove......and ....cheney.....etc...etc...
Fuck, they couldn't handle what I've had to face these past few years that's for fucking damn sure......
damn buncha bully mommas boys wimps they are......
H

"The least we can do is make sure they have everything they need to do the job.

When Cheney went to Iraq on his last junket, they borrowed a Rhino from a private contractor for him to ride around in. Much safer than a flat bottomed Humvee, it has a V shaped bottom to ride through the IED's. The private contractors make five times what a grunt makes and they have the best equipment.

But how can we lose with Jesus on our side.
Going to be one hell of a mess to clean up when those bastards finally leave the white house.

But what's to be done, we could talk about imperialism, we can make comparasions to the Nazis. But what is to be done? I saw a poll this past Sunday on Firing Line; fifty one percent of the people want a democratic congress come 2006. But their is still plenty of time for Osama to help turn those numbers around.

Good article, thanks

Thanks for the responses, friends:


The horror of this murderous and bloody, evil undertaking needs to be communicated. Tell everyone you know. Use these articles I'm posting to support your argument.

Under no circumstances, ask, "What's the big deal about Iraq?" as someone on this board once did.

The big deal is that it's ruining this country's image around the world, our moral standing, and our economy. It's killing our soldiers ( now almost 1800 of them-- thousands wounded . . .) and many thousands of innocent Iraqis. It's enhancing the reputation of "the bad guys" and supplying them with easy targets. "Terrorism" ( witness the London bombings) is not going away.

But lying, the kind our President did to start this totally unnecessary war, is flourishing in the White House.

The US, which at one period in history represented everyone's hope for the better, has now begun to symbolize the worst kind of imperial arrogance.

And the unwillingness of our alleged "leaders" to acknowledge this just makes things worse.

And by the way, "the job" you refer to in your clipping from the article, Still, is killing.



Zlatko

Come to think of it, I don't the United States will ever recover from this war. It will do to us what the Peloponnesian wars did to Athens.

it's only pretend money, anyway

standard of living being a relative thing, reductions in QOL simply mean a bit less of an extremely good thing

\
but not to defend lying or take bush's side, but let's talk about what an evacuated iraq would look like, and who around here would really like to see that happen...let's hear some of that compassion

Thanks Z, for the article. A damn good read and one that should be talked about much more openly within our media.


Knip - fair question, your last statement.... and one that hasn't been adressed, at least publicly. One can only theorizewhat would happen, just as our administration theorized the open arms and roars of thanks from an Iraqi public for saving them from the oppression of Saddam.

As Z's article has pointed out, billions and billions of dollars (sounds like a Carl Sagan thing, eh?) have been spent with yet billions and billions more yet to be spent on 'democratizing' a country that has never in it's history had such a thing. If this isn't a crap shoot, I don't know what is!

The U.S. is bearing the entire brunt, financially and mostly thru lives, of this 'crap shoot', and if you don't think that the current adminsitration (or many other politicos) think that Iraq will 'owe' us the gratitude through their oil fields, I would question the logic of the 'dis-agree'ers'. That of course, only if we (U.S.) bring a sense of stability there, which as we've all seen and continue to see daily, is highly questionable.

If those that believe we should pull out now stop and consider that we owe the Iraqi people (who are the Iraqi people, btw? Which religious group? Sunni's or Shiites? This or that???) a massive rebuilding of at the very least would be their water supply system, their electrical grids, the many towns that are presently inhabitable.... just little bits of billions more dollars, at least.

Here in the good ol' U.S.A. we have only figures dating back to 1998 (so far as I can find) that shows our country's distribution of wealth -

Top 1% 38.1%
Top 96-99% 21.3%
Top 90-95% 11.5%
Top 80-89% 12.5%
Top 60-79% 11.9%
General 40-59% 4.5%
Bottom 40% 0.2%

I haven't taken time to 'google up' the distribution charts in Canada, because I'm taking points with your comment - "standard of living being a relative thing, reductions in QOL simply mean a bit less of an extremely good thing"... which possibly from the outside seems damn good. Because of the great amount of wealth that America has collectively, do not underestimate the financial danger the average bottom 40% faces in the coming years (if not now in many cases) because of the billions and billions that are being allocated to Iraq. Must the average Joe and Jane and their future offspring continue to foot the bill for the debts of our politician's foolish behavior?

I'm sure you are aware of the problems we have in this country with our health services and our education systems, just to name two, and just a small percentage of the that 'daily dose of 5 billion dollars a day into Iraq' would go a long way towards assisting these two problems alone. I don't want to go into a litany of problems and grievances we have in our country because all countries have their own problems, but what is upsetting is the money is there but being used for dubious purposes... and doing very little good in the eyes of the world.

I have to assume your "it's only pretend money, anyway" comment was light-hearted, but unfortunately for America's top 4% it is everything... and growing without boundaries of any sort especially given the tax code changes by Bushco. Any country that values its citizenry would provide as best it could for them, much like any parent would do for its offspring, but I don't see this happening within our own country, at least willingly.

[enough]

i expect nothing less than an outstanding and thoughtful response from you, cecil

lest it be unclear for anyone, i am a socialist through and through...i believe wholeheartedly in public health care, etc., and i am aware of how that money could be put to better use...nonetheless, with no iraq, i'm not convinced that money would be spent that way, anyway...ergo my pithy remark

billions of dollars are big things, to be sure...but until they are taken away from something, they have no meaning...less money spent in areas where money isn't spent anyway is not less money...it is imaginary dollars...and that is what we are talking about here

the bigger question is what does the world do with 40% (picking the number out my ass) of the world disconnected...you may hum and haw about globalization if you like, but it is here, and it is fact...the other fact, of course, is that those in that 40% want to be part of it...i simply reject the notion of killing people with kindness

Hi, Knip! Thx for the response.

I, too, am in agreement with "i simply reject the notion of killing people with kindness"... much like the "give a man a fish he lives for a day, teach a man to fish he lives a lifetime" mentality..? I certainly have socialist leanings myself and feel that there are definitely certain areas that should necessitate socialist policies, i.e, health care, clean air and water, electricty, pure unadulterated foods, and education would rank high on my list. As a matter of fact, (not to digress, mind you!), but it is that top 4% that has the power to squelch even the slightest hint of anything that even whispers the no-no word, 'socialism'... and it is specifically those within that four percentile that hold the others down, to a large extent, with the power of their money. But that would be more appropriate to another thread...

I am a 'realizer' in accepting the human condition and it's pitfalls and inequalities, but I do feel that there should be certain human rights and those I listed above are a short list, even if that 'scoundrelly 4%' (hah!) does not approve. But, hey! we can only observe and bitch when necessary and hopefully reach out to others with our schemes and dreams and if there are others out there that agree, that in itself is a positive, doncha' think?

As you know, I accept life and it's yin/yang-ness, but would like to see at least a bit more balance to the equation... it is up to mankind to find that balance. We collectively need to do more growing UP and not just old and forgetfull.

Nice seeing you around, knipper, and again, thanks.

We need to pull the troops out ASAP. Period. It would be the bravest thing to do.

How deep into debt would you take your family on a crapshoot?
How hard would you work to clean up the damages incurred?
Would you turn around and blame it on your family? That's what the Bush Administration will do.....I guarantee it.

We need to start cleaning up now. No more military. No more Bush and Rove and Rumsfeld.
It was the wrong door to crash through in the first place. It was totally the wrong approach, and we were bamboozeled into it by the Bush Administration. We have been gravely misled. We are losing America......at this point. We are becoming Christianica.
Fighting religious wars.
Who will we be if we stay in this war, at the end of it, if it ever does end?

Bush is total negative energy, this is how he keeps everyone at bay, by shouting and talking down to those of us listening. His very demeanor turns off our ears, holding us captive, (like a deer responds to headlights) to his arrogant agenda. He runs right over us then.

Don't be fooled anymore.
We need to get out of Iraq as a military force. We should never have gone there that way. It' wasn't necessary. We could have gone with nonviolent helping in mind...or would that have just been to damn hard to figure out?

Take a long look at him tonight when he announces his supreme court choice. Watch him in action. Don't let him bully you into blankness as he is so very well trained in doing. He is a very stupid, shallow man. He has no idea of what the majority of Americans live like. He is in a protected bubble and he has been all his life! How can he be savvy? How can he speak for you? Impossible. No, he is only small, and his vision is very shallow. He can rah rah rah about winning this war, while people are dying, and then continue on playing his smug little golf game.....
By his actions, one can only surmise he likes to kill, but of course, he says differently.
Check his track record in Texas......

We are in deep trouble globally because of this administration and it's bullying hexes, it's arrogant dismissal of humanity, and it's completely self-serving elite interests.

I've lost everything as you know. (I don't tell anyone how bad it really is for me, because I can't really face it myself right yet. I don't know of any safe place to go and ask for help either....)
But i'm invisible. I've never had enough money or connection to be visible.
Yet I am the majority.
Who are you?
Think about it.......
Who are you?

Blessed be to us all.....
H

Hester, I agree with all you have said.

Otherwise, to equivocators about the Iraq War, I refer you to the history of Vietnam and the US involvement there. To the complete history of our involvement, from complicity with the French to the Paris peace accords. Not merely to the "outcome."

This site:


http://www.casahistoria.net/vietnamwar.htm


contains many useful and informative links.

As I said earlier, it depends on your frame of reference. Your frame of reference can be widened and imaginatively enlarged if you try a little.

For examples, I leave you with two rather polemical short essays. You can find hundreds of others for yourself, invent your own dichotomies or their thousands of variations.

A bullet in the brain or a four-year-old with his arms blown off remain, stark as the four-note phrase in a Beethoven symphony.


Try this link:


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0129-06.htm


if you think you see events unwinding in a familiar way

and this link:

http://nationalreview.com/owens/owens200311060900.asp


if your intuition urges you to search for ways to re-think alleged comparisons from another angle.

Here's my personal viewpoint. And it's similar to the view Louis Armstrong had about jazz:

http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/louis ... quotes.htm


If you aren't capable of seeing the moral and material damage being done to the US with Bush's wars and misjudgments and arrogant blundering, then I have nothing more to say.

I'm not trying to argue against the war, because any intelligent person can decide for himself or herself. I'm merely trying to add to the discussion.

It's healthy to see these responses.



Zlatko

i have no particular love for bush...i think the man is an idiot...the problem is that i think the alternatives are equally silly...i haven't been inspired by a politician in a long time, and i don't see any change coming soon in that respect

when i look at current events, i don't often consider the motives behind why folks are doing what they are doing when i come to personal decisions about what i think should be done...certainly i want to understand motives from an historical viewpoint, but not when making my own decisions

for example, i was for iraq war 1 because i felt defending the defenseless was the right thing to do, which had nothing to do with why george sr. did what he did


here is what i know - a significant chunk of the planet is lorded over by snakes and thieves...as a human, i think those with the resources to do something about that have the moral obligation to do so...the weapons with which one attacks these problems are numerous...controlled violence is not the only way to do this...i don't even think it is the best option for trying to solve iraq, nonetheless, i believe it is a better option that sitting on our hands with our fingers up our asses

well i've never had my finger up my ass, so i can't compare it with anything except getting my prostate checked.

one guy told me a Thai whore did it to him for pleasure. Gave him a hard on. Actually, sitting with our fingers up our asses would be preferable to the absolute mess we have conjured up, man.

you don't feel the pain. You will have a pension, lifetime healthcare, no worries.Not as thoughtful as mtmynd, I suffer from bouts of depression from my American War experience, will have to work until I drop.and please, I just had to pay 65 bucks for my stepson's conjuctivitis eye drops and he had to pay 70 bucks for the doc, my step-son-in-law had a 20,000 dollar bill for a pancreatitis episode, our shools are overcrowded, our teachers underpaid, the kids are subjected to military recruiters as the most alluring way to get opportunities, FEUDAL. And then we whipp up into a frenzy for war, more profits for the wealthy at taxpayers expense.
It is a feaudal heirarchy. A war not fought by the rich, poor and lower middle class young folks are doing it.

Wanna bet the Canadians don't debt-finince their military?
Not with your kids futures, nor with your old age pension.

I never had the negative attitude towards Iran that Bush did, they are also against Al-Qaida, there never was a link between Al_Qaida and either Iraq or Iran, the best development so far is the return of numbers of Iraqi exiles from Iran, and the burdgeoning relationship with Iran,I see it as a good thing.

But Halliburton wants the contracts to continue, more in store,
There was an entirely different approach to this mess available.
Target Al-Qaida, with international support.

we had the inspectors bacvk in Iraq, more closely monitered the oil-for food program, encourage participation from Iran as well as other local area nations, give support and blessings to the NGO relief agencies that were going into Iraq, including offers to repair water resources, which today are abysmal, but the only drawback?

Global corporations would not be able to control the oil supply.
So we got the lies, the lemming-like rush to war, shock and awe and blitzkrieg, and fence-sitters pondering the dilemma, like John Kerry, the biggest loser of them all.


I think Halliburton wants its contracts, inefficacious as they are.
The money trail flows into deep pockets, capital intensive, stays here, further concentration the flow of wealth from the masses into the core elite.

Why not leave, send the Halliburton moneys to Iraq and let them rebuild the country as they wish?

Because we want the profits to go to our masters, Jesus!

Dig that jazz, never play it twice the same way.


http://www.fagotten.org/grifter/bush/undergod.jpg