Iraq, Afghanistan War Costs Top Vietnam
Congress’ approval Wednesday of $70 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan mean the twin conflicts are now more costly to American taxpayers than the war in Vietnam.
According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Congress has now approved nearly $700 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Using inflation-adjusted dollars, the total cost of those wars has now surpassed the total cost of the Vietnam war (which ran to $670 billion),” the group’s Travis Sharp told OneWorld. “It’s also more than seven times larger than the Persian Gulf War ($94 billion) and more than twice the cost of the Korean war ($295 billion).”
As a result of Wednesday’s vote, Sharp said, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will become the second costliest conflict in American history, trailing only World War II.
“But that was a time when 12 million Americans served, as compared with 1.42 million active duty soldiers and just over one million National Guard and reservists today,” Sharp added.
Much of the money approved by Congress will go to buy expensive new military equipment: $922 million is earmarked for purchase or alteration of 41 new Blackhawk, Apache, and Chinook Helicopters; $813 million will be spent on new Bradley Fighting Vehicles; $455 million for new Humvees; $427 million on new Heavy Tactical Vehicles; and $425 million for M1 Abrams Tanks.
“I think what you’re seeing from Democrats is a resignation to the fact that they’re going to have to wait for the Bush Administration to leave office before they see any serious change in the country’s war policy,” Sharp said. “The Democrats just want to play out the clock on this one.”
But “playing out the clock” comes with a severe cost for essential services at home.
Even before the new $70 billion dollars was approved Wednesday, the Massachusetts-based National Priorities Project had estimated that the average American household has already spent $4,100 on the Iraq war.
This year alone, US taxpayers spent $137.6 billion on the Iraq war. For the same amount of money, the government could have provided more than 39 million people with health care, built one million units of affordable housing, or outfitted 142 million homes with renewable electricity sources.
“We want to help people comprehend the magnitude of these numbers,” said the group’s Pamela Schwartz. “Surely, ultimately, we’d hope that our priorities would shift so that significantly less money is going to war with more money going to programs like heath care, Headstart, and education.”
“We want to help people understand that choices are being made here,” she added.
To that end, the National Priorities Project has set up a web-site, www.costofwar.com, where taxpayers can learn what the cost of the Iraq war has meant to their community. Visitors to the website can search by state, city, or congressional district and find out how much money the Iraq war has taken out of their community and where the money could have gone instead.
For example, taxpayers in Chicago have spent $4.8 billion on the war in Iraq - money that could have been used to build 567 new elementary schools or build 35,000 units of affordable housing.
In smaller places like George W. Bush’s hometown of Crawford, Texas, war spending has also had a strong impact. Crawford’s taxpayers have spent $1.3 million on the war in Iraq - money that could have been used to provide 180 full scholarships for university students, or hire 30 additional police and sheriff’s deputies.
“The Democrats were elected last year with a certain set of priorities, but President Bush drew a line in the sand,” Schwartz told OneWorld. “Rather than drawing their own line, Democrats respected Bush’s line. They met President Bush’s spending limits on domestic programs and gave him a blank check for the Iraq war. That’s the choice they made.”
© 2007 One World.net
I’m sure george is quite proud of his role in creating and maintaining the most expensive war in history. woo hoo!
The Democrats missed the chance to stand Bush’s argument on its head! Either YOU bring the troops home because YOU HAVE run out of money or YOU Mr. Bush abandon the troops in harms way which I would hope would be urgent grounds for impeachment if not a military mutiny.
Just enough money should have been allocated to get every single one of the troops home safe right now!
And them more than enough to treat generously the soldiers returning wounded or battle scarred who deserve appropriate pensions for the incapacitated and the best medical care available!!!
“playing out the clock comes with a severe cost for essential services at home.” —as if the severe costs in iraqi lives weren’t worth mentioning. thanks a lot, dems (and your apologists @ CD).
Ronald Ray Gun covered some of the Vietnam costs by debasing our coinage. Ever see a silver dime? Followed by the massive inflation of the `70s which consumed everyone’s savings. The silver is gone so I think that George and Dickie’s coming inflation will be worse. That’s what’s behind the coprophagous smirk.
Merry christmas ‘awakerz’
wouldn’t it be nice to see a headline entitled “no more war, all governments’re finished” ?
It will soon be; their reign is ova; forget “sustainability”
Its down to U n I to blog-on and help each other in harder times.
Peace n ,love
And yet, there are other costs not mentioned. How does one calculate the cost of a son or daughter killed in action? The medical costs of returning vets? The costs to private businesses and public organizations who have to operate each day without their valued employees who have had their state guard units shipped overseas for extended tours of duty? Of families that have been torn apart? Of the psychological scars left on our nation from fighting multiple wars? Of lost face in the world community? War dividends are few. Peace dividends are many.
Congratulations Bush! We knew you could do it. AND, you managed to get rid of all those dirty dollars in just a quarter of the time it took to obtain “Peace with Honor” in Vietnam. You didn’t even have to pull out like he did. With the way the Democrats caved, you can keep the flow going forever or at least until the Treasury is finally empty.
You sure managed to make your fellow Texan, Lyndon Johnson, look small when it comes to spending. Shoot, he was a just piker in comparison. Bet ya he’s turning over in his grave in jealousy.
Better yet, you managed to divert most of the money for your Wars against Terrorist to your Republican campaign contributors instead of having to spend it all on unnecessary things like - - - up to date equipment and enlisted men’s pay and post trauma medical treatment for the troops.
Yessiree. You’re Number 1. You’re Number 1.
I understand Kucinich hoping beyond hope to some day, once upon some far-distant future time, succeed in helping to reform the Dem. Party; it’s an understandable dream, for it’s unmistakably clear that the DP majorly needs to reform itself. But to really think that such a dream will be fulfilled, will [eventually] become reality, this is a very different matter, too.
It can be fun to dream, but it’s always better to dream [realistically].
I understand that by staying member of the DP, and as a member of Congress, this gives him opportunities to speak out and act as best as he can and perhaps more than he could have done if he had quit the DP after the criminal appointment of John Kerry by the DNC in 2004. I appreciate Kucinich’s efforts, certainly; but don’t see that there’s any possibility of him succeeding with his evident goals.
But if he had left the DP and ran as an independent, then would he be heard as much as he has been; would his electors still vote for him in sufficient numbers to get the Congressional seat for his riding, as he’s had as a member of the DP; …? As far as I’m aware, and it’s little with regards to politics pre-GWoT, for I despise politics, given it’s mostly despicable, well, Nader got many supporters, even if they constituted a small minority of the overall electorate, but he has not yet become member of either Congress or the Senate; and if that’s true, then I don’t see why Kucinich would continue to get the voter support that he’s been getting, if he left the DP. After all, they’re both people who are good for political roles.
Still, what causes him to continue to think that it’s worth staying with the DP today? He’s obviously caught inbetween a rock and another hard place; and neither is going to give way to his efforts, struggles.
If the Judiciary Committee gets off its cowardly and/or criminally complicit, treasonous, disloyal ass with regards to the impeachment bill Kucinich introduced and got around 20 co-sponsors for, making it a worthwhile vote to have sent the bill to the JC, then this will have been great for Kucinich and the bill’s co-sponsors and other supporters; he, and they, will have finally succeeded, against “all odds”, of achieving something real. But I suspect that the JC is not going to do this; thinking or expecting that it’ll likely shelve the bill, and while of course without making this action publicly known, instead letting the public (mis)believe that the JC is really and finally acting correctly. It’s one way to achieve the quietening down of public protest, although the public wasn’t putting up much protest, anyway.
By now, we know that that could all be just an act of pretense, instead of real and honest will, so I won’t discount the possibility that the bill being sent to the JC is going to yet again end up being used to try to deceive the public into misbelieving that the govt leadership is (somewhat) serious about being honest, and loyal to the Constitution and world. It’s all the DP and RP have proven of themselves so far; nothing better.
And while the present apparent efforts of Robert Wexler and the other two Congress members to try to get the JC to really act on the impeachment bill, in the direction towards impeachment, this could also be another stage act; they could know that the efforts are not going to be fruitful, could be just trying to quiet protest. It’s hopefully not what they’re doing.
I don’t know what kind of satisfaction Kucinich can derive from such noble dreams about such a hellbent criminal party. They’re mostly selfless, possessing no self, thus NO (moral) SOUL. Mindlessness is to act as if not possessing a real mind, so selflessness logically is to be without a self, so without a soul. Without that, we can not feel joy, happy about helping or just trying to help others in real need, for it is the self that experiences the joy.
Quite a dreamer he is, but I won’t knock his anti-war, anti-economic injustice, … efforts. He’s right, just that working against all odds sure is no easy path and evidently is very unlikely to be successful, EVER, in the political sphere that he is member of.
I am not knowledgeable about the details of politics, but wonder why the impeachment bill against Cheney was sent to the Judiciary Committee. The reason for my confusion is due to recalling from articles on Mike Gravel that he read the Pentagon Papers into the public record, having doen so right there in the Senate. Also mentioned in one of those articles is that if he had not managed to do this, then the PP surely would NOT have made it into the public record.
So I wonder why the same, basically the same anyway, wasn’t done with this impeachment bill against Cheney.
Oh well, politics is a f*cked up sphere anyway, full of hellish human fiends, and it’s always been very much that way. That in turn can be interpreted as meaning that not voting, unless there really and critically is or are candidates worthy of being elected to public office, well, not voting otherwise and probably is the most honourable choice.
Imagine if all American voters against this present govt’s criminally abstained from voting, in addition to the roughly 40% who usually don’t vote. It’d surely be a very interesting event, or non-event; it’d be a strong and HIGH majority message, one much stronger than what we can otherwise expect from those intending to vote voting, surely.
Tragically, awfully, very little good can be said of politics, which mainly consists of people who never learned to apply the golden rule of, “MIND YOUR OWN (f*cking) BUSINESS!”; to justly work on the needs of ALL, not wants, but needs, or else stay out of other peoples’ lives altogether.
In all of U.S. history, there nearly are more fingers on one hand than the country has had for a count of seriously respectable political leadership.
Kucinich is fighting a losing battle all the way; or so it seems.
And the next presidency will continue the GWoT; perhaps with slightly altered appearance, but nonetheless continuing it, GW Of T. And every cost we can imagine as being related, directly and indirectly, will continue to increase.
I see no end in sight; therefore no hope, either. Well, no realistic hope, anyway.
All the military equipment is worn out and will be replaced by the warmongering fools plus the lost economic development both here and in the war areas will be additional trillions. If we do not abandon our own mentally and physically damaged veterans it will cost additional trillions.
Inflation of the currency is already underway and is likely to accelerate right into a recession - additional trillions in cost.
The cost calculated so far is the tip of the iceberg. The really big cost of lost economic possibilities will never be calculated.
Now that I’ve read the article, I’ll comment a little specifically on what it says.
With the costs of replacing military equipment being specified, clearly no one can now credibly claim that the MIC or military-industrial complex profiteers don’t have strong motive for supporting these wars; even if it’s mostly or entirely support expressed behind closed doors.
And I’m impressed, not well but still impressed by the fact that the article is only about costs of financial kind and entirely with regards to those applying to the U.S., nationally; not a single mention of the costs to the Iraqis and Afghans, which in turn constitute far greater costs, the latter being comparitively greater, astronomically so. And we can add the lack of mention of the cost in terms of the lives of U.S. troops, foreign journalists, and other foreigners killed due to these two wars. Those amount to much less than do the costs to Iraqis and Afghans, but both sets are important costs to consider; always.
That’s not to say that the economic costs to American taxpayers is unimportant, for they are important, and plenty of Amercans initially for these wars turned against them only due to the financial costs to themselves. With those people needing to be stirred up to oppose the continuation of these wars, as selfish as their reasons are, it is appropriate to emphasise costs to Americans’ wallets or bank accounts.
Still, Glantz could have included at least a little mention of these other and far greater and more important costs. I don’t understand how anyone who’s pro-justice could overlook this. He could have said, f.e., “While the costs in terms of those to the Iraqis and Afghans, foreign troops killed, other foreign troops mentally PTSD’d for likely the rest of their lives, foreign troops seriously injured, journalists killed, and so on, are enormous, other writers and reporters have written plenty on these costs, so refers to those articles; while this one is only to describe some of the economic costs in terms of what the funding for these wars could have been better and justly used for in the U.S.A., for improving its society”.
Otherwise, it’s a good article. I do find it appreciable for what Glantz did provide; we do want or rather need to know what these financial costs are.
Otoh, would that money have been used to really benefit U.S. society as Glantz’s article emphasises could have been done? I DOUBT IT; we have awfully little for precendent to base an opposite belief on. Wars or no wars, the ruling elites don’t use the huge amounts of money lifted through taxation to really benefit U.S. society anyway. … come to think of it.
Humans have the potential to do good and govern righteously, but it hasn’t happened in the U.S. through all of its history, except very, very little.
Other than a loss of couple of thousand American soldiers, war in Iraq actually cost American economy nothing!
Because, American companies got all those dollars back in revenues, which American government spent for conducting wars abroad.
Eww,
Die on you nationalistic morons. Make those corporations and their whores in power even richer.
Much of the money approved by Congress will go to buy expensive new military equipment: $922 million is earmarked for purchase or alteration of 41 new Blackhawk, Apache, and Chinook Helicopters; $813 million will be spent on new Bradley Fighting Vehicles; $455 million for new Humvees; $427 million on new Heavy Tactical Vehicles; and $425 million for M1 Abrams Tanks.
Um, why does the “war” need such heavy equipment to “fight” rag-tab “insurgents” armed with, at best, AK-47s?
If the US can spend like that to the war profiteers what could it do for its people? Nothing most likely. It could do its job of taking care of its spent nuclear fuel to make headway for the energy lobby, it could earmark new buildings and infrastructure for private companies and build up our shipping and receiving to ease the costs on businesses, it could do a lot with all the money to ensure that businesses have a free run on the consumer. These thing are already being done. Unfortunately it wont do anything to ensure the safety and wellbeing of the american worker.
Unknown_Unknownable I think you live in the box of the institution. There is no humor in your comment and I think that you are small minded, at least from your comment. I don’t think you can spell your name right either. You should work harder at your disinformation.
and remember your frontroad canidates Hillary and Barack both say they won’t bring the troops home before 2013, which means next election cycle, the line is going to be that they won’t bring troops home till after 2018.
and any withdrawel of 10, 20, 30k troops will just get us back to 140K, the original strength we’ve always had there.
The point is we’re they’re, and whether it’s 90k troops, or 180k troops, it’s counterproductive, costly and slowly (but substantially) damaging this country.
The maximum-possible amount of Public-monies Bush can piss-away are literally ‘the more the merrier’ (it will allow the ‘good-cop/bad-cop’ Dem soon to follow him to ‘just have to cut-back on Entitlement-spending’ (like SocSec, which ISN’T any ‘entitlement’ at-all, just our own Cash that THEY-all mismanaged).
It takes a Dem to withdraw/destroy ‘New Deal’ programs — just like good-ol’ ‘Triangulatin’/Slick-Willie’ forced-out ‘welfare’ (and wifey made sure ’single-payer’ would ‘not-Float’) and also forced-in NAFTA, military-adventures in Africa/Kosovo, this GWoT-crap, etc., et al.
I’m real-tired of this good-cop/bad-cop routine — I wish they’d all just form one, big Investor-Class Party, and quit this ‘democracy’-Scam [don’t you?].
This sham is ‘insult upon injury’, in my-estimation…if they so-want Class-Warfare, they should simply Declare one — and be Done With It..
This proves that Compassionate Conservatism is neither. Two trillion dollars in eventual, total costs financed by IOUs to the Japanese and Chinese in our children’s and grandchildren’s names, a million lives, the respect of the world and our cherished rights up in smoke.
I read on the BBC that the direct and indirect cost of the Bush catastrophy is three trillion dollars, so far. We should expect the costs for repairs and reparations to be three to four times that amount.
Egad! After we get through disembowel the filthy rich fascists bastards behind this war crime and nationalizing their assets we may need to sell their children into slavery to cover the destruction of our national treasury. That goes double for any member of congress that even thinks about touching the ‘third rail’ to pay for this. Better to sell off some ‘red’ states.
Welcome to a new and improved War for Profit. Americans during Vietnam were still considered citizens. Americans today are considered consumers (and don’t forget that a corporation is considered just as human as an American individual). So these Corporations (I mean American consumers) have more “freedom and liberty” to rob the American consumer in the name of spreading MORE “freedom and libery” across the world …. Neo-liberal Laissez-Faire is now framed as democracy which neo-conservs and media have framed as freedom. Our Corporate Gov’t today would say mission accomplished. Oh wait, they did.
Oh the Dem-lovers, keep on voting and apologizing for the Dems. Continues voting for Hillary, Edwards, Obama, Pelosi….(as you have done before for Bill, Gore and Kerry) and they will bring you to the promised land.
There is NO significant difference between the two evil parties in foreign policy matters. But Americans are too dumb to understand this.
__ N E W ___ U S A ____ R U L E S __
__ O N E __ P A R T Y _ R U L E S __
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… and don’t forget to go shopping
It’s always about the party (money for corporations) baby; and just like after Vietnam the hangover will be also be there.
Right now they have to continue the war as long as possible as the failing mortgage scandal is about to really erupt and it would be a double whammy that would make the recession of the 70’s be remembered as a beautiful dream.
Sure they could have spent the money on our children’s education and well being, which in the long run would have been much more beneficial to the country as a whole but that would not have made money for the MIE so %$@* you kids; of yeah, and on top of that we will leave you the debt too.
Sorry, should have specified. If you’re the kids of the ruling 1%, I am sure you will do fine.
Thanks for the second time in one week Senator Bob Casy Jr [D-PA], for apparently having lost your mind! You have never done such things before! I find you complicit along with every other DIM and member of the GOP that F#$KED us in the last Vote Calls.
You and Specter Bff’s now? Happy damn New Year, too bad the people whose murders you are now responsible for won’t, but then again Senator Casey, Sir, the collateral damage is not that of any of your 4, count ‘em, 4, ever heard of BC, kids, yeah?
I will never support you spineless, whimps of a sorry excuse for a Dem any longer. Kucinich, only. He has Vote Calls to prove it!!!
Mike Corbeil No one likes you. Your a cheney! Now that you read the article.
I know we’ll tax the rich and it can be paid in full overnight! We’ll just use the same tax bracket for everyone during filing!