U.S. cost of war at least $3.7 trillion and counting

[cal04]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/us-usa-war-idUSTRE75S25320110629?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Reuters%2FPoliticsNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+Politics+News%29

When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America's wars.

Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. (www.costsofwar.org)

In the 10 years since U.S. troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.

[cbdo2007]

1. Everyone needs to go read the entire article.

Goes more into the human toll and the supposed justification for spending this much.

[DrDan]

2. I once calculated that $1trillion in war costs would have built 50 new high schools in each and

every state and placed 100 teachers in each for 30 years.

That shows the ultimate cost of these foolish wars.


But the power to wage war just takes over and rational thought goes out the window. We see it over and over and over.

[MikeMc]

3. The bush Admin assumed that the costs of the Iraq War would be zero, for budgetary purposes:

Eric Alterman and Mark Green, 'The Book on Bush', Viking Press, Penguin Group, New York, NY, 2004, pp. 46 - 47:

'After projecting a $455 billion deficit, Mitch Daniel's successor at OMB, Johsua Bolton, said it was "manageable" because it was less, as a percentage of gross domestic product, than Reagan's record. According to Treasury Secretary John Snow, "If you look at this budget as a percentage of GDP, they decline and they get down to well under one percent . That's a modest deficit." But Snow didn't include either the costs of Iraq* and Afghanistan, or the costs of extending current tax cuts or the several hundred billion filched from the Social Security Trust Fund."

* (p. 47 foot note): 'As of this writing, the administration claims that, because it can't precisely estimate the cost of maintaining 140,000 troops in Iraq, it would for budget purposes assume they're zero.'


And we're STILL not talking about the costs of helping returning troops, who currently are suffering from Traumatic Brain Injury, Military Sexual Trauma, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. So don't add those costs to l'il bush's 'zero dollar' Iraq War budget. Still, the repug economic 'rocket scientists' in W.'s Admin managed to outspend every other presidential Administration in US history, combined. The GOP are fantastic stewards of the nation's economy.

Now, it is time for the repug politicians to decry deficit spending, from the 'moral high ground' of economic reality.