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Casualty Of War: The U.S. Economy
By James Sterngold
07/17/05 "San
Francisco Chronicle" - - 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."
E-mail James Sterngold at jsterngold@sfchronicle.com.
$313.9 BILLION
. . . is the U.S. cost for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.
The following shows a breakdown of that total by year and by type of costs:
IRAQ
Fiscal year 2003 2004 2005
Military 48.9 77.9 62.9
Reconstruction, foreign 6.6 20.1 1.8
assistance and training.
AFGHANISTAN
Fiscal year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Military 13.0 17.5 27.1 18.0 13.0
Reconstruction, foreign 0.5 0.6 1.4 1.9 2.7
assistance and training.
IRAQ
Military $189.7 billion
Reconstruction, foreign +28.5 billion
assistance and training
TOTAL: $218.2 billion.
AFGHANISTAN
Military $88.6 billion
Reconstruction, foreign +7.1 billion
assistance and training
TOTAL: $95.7 billion
GRAND TOTAL: $313.9 billion
Sources: Office of Management and Budget; Defense Department;
Congressional Research Service; House Budget Committee Democratic Caucus
Todd Trumbull / The Chronicle
©2005 San Francisco Chronicle
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