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Nobel Laureate Estimates Wars' Cost at More Than $3 Trillion
WASHINGTON - When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration predicted that the war would be self-financing and that rebuilding the nation would cost less than $2 billion.
Coming up on the fifth anniversary of the invasion, a Nobel laureate now estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing America more than $3 trillion.
That estimate from Noble Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz also serves as the title of his new book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War," which hits store shelves Friday.
The book, co-authored with Harvard University professor Linda Bilmes, builds on previous research that was published in January 2006. The two argued then and now that the cost to America of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is wildly underestimated.
When other factors are added - such as interest on debt, future borrowing for war expenses, the cost of a continued military presence in Iraq and lifetime health-care and counseling for veterans - they think that the wars' costs range from $5 trillion to $7 trillion.
"I think we really have learned that the long-term costs of taking care of the wounded and injured in this war and the long-term costs of rebuilding the military to its previous strength is going to far eclipse the cost of waging this war," Bilmes said in an interview.
The book and its estimates are the subject of a hearing Thursday by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress.
The White House doesn't care for the estimates by Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank who's now a professor at Columbia University.
"People like Joe Stiglitz lack the courage to consider the cost of doing nothing and the cost of failure. One can't even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9-11," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto, conceding that the costs of the war on terrorism are high while questioning the premise of Stiglitz's research.
"It is also an investment in the future safety and security of Americans and our vital national interests. $3 trillion? What price does Joe Stiglitz put on attacks on the homeland that have already been prevented? Or doesn't his slide rule work that way?"
Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a decorated Marine Corp colonel and Vietnam veteran, welcomed the effort by Stiglitz and Bilmes to quantify how much the wars will cost taxpayers.
"It's astounding that here we are about to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and this administration still refuses to acknowledge the long-term costs of the war in Iraq," he said.
By any estimate, the Bush administration's predictions in March 2003 of a self-financing war have proved to be wildly inaccurate. Stiglitz cites operational spending to date of $646 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, working off estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, presumes that spending on these wars over the next decade probably will amount to another $913 billion.
Pentagon officials had no immediate comment on Stiglitz's book or his estimates.
Stiglitz and Bilmes first estimated war costs of $1 trillion in January 2006. Their research proved controversial and sparked debate about the costs of replacing equipment used by the regular armed forces and National Guard. In the new book, they offer a figure of $404 billion for replacing equipment, planes and tanks and bringing military hardware back from Iraq and Afghanistan.
In an interview, Stiglitz said that too much of the public debate had been over the wars' operational costs while the real budget strains would show up only years from now.
"The peak expenditures are way out," he said, noting that the peak expenditures for World War II vets came in 1993.
The pair estimated that future medical, disability and Social Security costs for veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan range from a best-case $422 billion to what they call a more probable long-term expense of $717 billion.
It's why the two call in the book for creating a Veterans Benefits Trust Fund to set aside money in a "lock box" to pay for future health-care needs of Iraq and Afghanistan vets. Although veterans' health care amounts to a future promise, they said, it isn't an entitlement and instead is funded through discretionary spending. In the future, funding for vets will compete with other government programs.
"We should not have an unfunded entitlement program like this," Stiglitz said. "This is more like deferred compensation. . . . We require corporations to put money away but we don't require the government to put money away, and we should be doing that . . . so when the focus turns away to some other problem, veterans aren't given the shaft."
The book divides war costs into two main categories: budgetary and social. The budgetary costs are the more quantifiable spending on operations, equipment, future benefits paid to veterans and the like. In a best-case scenario they total about $1.7 trillion; in a more probable scenario almost $2.7 trillion.
The social costs that Stiglitz and Bilmes offer are more theoretical, and represent the thought-provoking part of their war-cost argument.
When a soldier is killed in combat, they said, the U.S. armed forces pay a $100,000 death gratuity and make a $400,000 payment to his or her survivors in the equivalent of insurance for an unexpected death.
If these men and women had died in private-sector employment or in some kind of disaster, compensation to family members generally would be settled in court after determining what economists and lawyers call "the value of statistical life." This measures the economic contribution that a person would have made over the rest of his or her life if they hadn't died.
Stiglitz and Bilmes settled on a statistical value of life that they say the Environmental Protection Agency uses when people are killed in environmental disasters: $7.2 million.
There have been 4,456 U.S. military fatalities in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to Feb. 26, 2008. The direct cost to the Pentagon from these deaths has been $2.2 billion, but if lives are valued as they are outside the armed forces, the researchers conclude, the hypothetical economic cost rises to more than $30 billion. Include contractors killed while working for U.S. operations and the number rises to more than $50 billion.
In a best-case outlook, the social and societal costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would be $295 billion; $415 billion in a moderate-realistic case scenario.
© 2008 McClatchy Newspapers
87 Comments so far
Show AllMay a horny camel find Cheney's ass and fill it to the rim.
When all is said and done, the three trillion $$$$ will only be the down payment for this corporate coups d'etat. How about that? THEY screw us and WE pay THEM.
It's perfect. In 2000 Iraq was worth an estimated 10 Trillion to international investors and oil bankers, but the problem was the GDP was a measly 11 Billion - peanuts for Iraq. They were sitting on a pile of gold. Certainly didn't help that Saddam had a 125 billion dollar international debt which he couldn't repay.
3 Trillion dollars, and guess who foots that tab? Certainly not the investors or the bankers, but yep, you guessed it, you and I the taxpayer have to foot that bill - paying interest on it to. War is perfectly designed for the investor, it exploits obscene ammounts of money and loot from both the host nation and the invaded nation.
And what's a little war profiteering, no bid defense contracts, security contracts etc. just large government handouts to corperations while you have a war?
Iraq, with a crumbling military, disfunctional government was a sitting duck just waiting to be plucked by international investors.
If it ever dawns on the military men and women who/what they're actually fighting for, I give a max of two days before a Military Coup and takes place, overthrowing the American Government.
what makes you think we haven´t already had a military coup???
They're in denial. They've delluded and convinced themselves that they're actually fighting a threat to this nation, enemies, and for security. The same way the masses of this nation are deluded into believing the war is about all those things.
Granted, one of the best methods to dellude the military is to send them out to create threats, create enemies, incite hatred, and weaken security so you can keep the propoganda and excuses going.
So again, if it ever dawns on the military man and women how they're manipulated and used, I give two days. But of course, it is folly to hope for them to become self-aware - that's why we're in Iraq, and will be for decades to come.
Get used to being in Iraq. We're there for the long haul, "liberating" these people.
Watch as the Beast of militarism crushes everything in its path, consumes everything we have and still howls for more, more, more.
$3 trillion is $10,000 for every American, including children and retired folks, so say $20,000 per working adult. It's draining the economy, or more accurately, emptying it into some big pockets and away from benefiting you and me. And the article doesn't even mention the cost of rebuilding Iraq, except for Bush's ridiculous estimate in the first sentence. Iraq has suffered so much more than we did on 9/11 it makes me cringe to hear them still bringing that up. These are sick and evil people who are conducting this war. Our top generals seem to have more sense, judging by some of the statements of retired ones. Maybe a coup would be good, since the Congress seems incapable of reining in these bastards.
Kick out the politicians! Direct Democracy, NOW! Incorporate We the People!
For inspiration, check out:
http://www.beppegrillo.it/eng/
Problem with a coup is IF, the big IF, it finally dawns on the military who they've serving - all that the financiers have to do is pay off the military to keep fighting for them, against this country.
Want to see who the true patriots are? See who fights for no pay.
It's like the scene in Cuba from the Godfather II "That soldier gets paid for what he does. But that rebel who gets paid nothing was willing to blow himself up rather than be captured."
"What does that tell you?"
"It tells me the rebels can win."
Take away the pay of the soldiers, and see how the all volunteer army works out. If they're selflessly serving their country without personal pride or prejudice, fighting for everyone else, they should have no problem fighting for no pay.
Gosh!
Who, in the name of humanity, would vote for such a thing!?
And in the name of humanity, who would vote to continue funding this series of atrocities?
Our beloved military-industrial complex deserves blue ribbons for such a fantastic contribution to our economic growth. These brave new wars pulled us out of Bill Clinton's recession just like WWII pulled us out of the Great Depression. We have tears in our eyes. God Bless America!!
Despite the three trillion our soldiers could not get body armor or rifles. The words "economic rape" come to mind.
The $3 Trillion is an interesting figure but terribly low in my humble opinion.
Someone with a sharp pencil and mind for economics and currency values and inflation should figure out the effects of our dead dollar (which began to fall against other currencies just on the rumor of America invading Iraq) on everyone's pocketbook and net worth as well as the economic ripple effects of higher energy prices as the invasion and occupation has reduced Iraq's production thus creating artificially high oil prices resulting in an overall decline of the American economy and loss of jobs and of course the extended effects on the global economy tied to the American consumer who can no longer afford to go shopping. ETC.
This may be a slow death for the imperial empire handed to us by a rag-tag resistance who by current accounting must surely have God on their side !
The Bush Administration with the help of the Congress and Supreme Court effectively has bankrupted this country. All of their rich friends get richer and everyone else gets f###ed. They get a delicious piece of the pie while everyone else gets nothing (okay, maybe an occasional crumb). That is the way it always has worked, so any chance of change is unlikely until we change the system.
3 Trillion was the estimated value of Iraq's Oil in US Dollars in this 2002 article:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2002/12heart.htm
Of course the war has increased the value of the oil 4X since then . . .
It is interesting to observe that the USA would need to spend $3 trillion to fight a war against good old Saddam Hussein and Iraq, a 3rd world adversary. I would like to ask you Americans, how effective are your gizzmo weapons like the B1 Bomber ($1.5 billion each and you have now 9 of them having crashed 1 of them lately. Your Air- carriers wgicg costs over $20 billion to build and another $5 billion to run and maintain.
Hey ! you Americans are so useless as warriors. Your gizzmos are as you put it "walk into Iraq in just 10 days. Yes ! You took Iraq in 5 days with no resistance if I may add, but look at what your aggression got you ? Come to think of it your quakmire in Veitnam was in fact a cake walk costs wise. I think the USA ought take on another role and this time do not take on the roll of Aggressor because you are just hopeless at it.
Stay the course, USA, and produce more excellent movies because fantasy is your speciality, give up your role as Imperialist, THAT IS HARD !
"The $3 Trillion is an interesting figure but terribly low in my humble opinion"
Doesn't include the interest and debt we have to pay.
Again though. In 2000, Iraq's GDP was only 11 Billion. We might as well have bought the damn country for like 50 Billion, and exiled Saddams regime. that would save us 2.95 Trillion tax dollars, and the oil investors and bankers could have had all the loot they want.
So now 9/11 has cost us more than 7,000 lives and $3 trillion - bin Laden must be cackling in his cave, the shrewdest investor of them all! What a pack of deluded fools are the American public. Watch for them to reaffirm their stupidity by electing that candidate of change and a breath of fresh air in Washington, John "Playboy" McCain.
"a Nobel laureate now estimates that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing America more than $3 trillion."
We should take such studies in proper context. Such analyses make a point, but without context are akin to robber thinking. Robbers seem to think about their own benefit only, to the exclusion of their victims.
The cost of these wars to America is $3T. How about the "collateral damage"?? If the cost to US is zero, or even generated a profit to the tune of $3T, would the mass murder, mayhem, and destruction of this fragile earth be justified?
Apparently yes by the MIC folks.
Its a start, but we need to calculate and advertise the real costs of these adventures.
And guess which segment of US society is pocketing these tax dollars? You're right - the rich, who purchased a tax exemption card from the Bushies.
And he wants even more to follow this - how about $4 trillion?
Forget about schools, health, infrastructure, SocSec, consumer protection, etc. Money spent there does not earn a profit for the rich oligarchy. It is much easier to control a population which has been forced to live in penury.
When one includes the US priceless military relationship with Israel, the cost of death and destruction likely doubles. No wonder why the entire world hates amerika and israel.
Of course the total global costs of these adventures is greater by far, but Americans don't give a crap about anybody else. A sure-fire way to get their attention is to tell them their tax money is being wasted and a sure-fire way to get their vote is to tell them you'll cut their taxes. No money for education? - Not if I have to pay taxes for it! No money for infrastructure? - Not if I have to pay taxes for it! No money for supporting the returning troops? - Not if I have to pay taxes for it! No money for health care, product safety inspections, port security, etc, etc, etc? - Not if I have to pay taxes for it! That's the Silent Majority; that's the Values Voter; that's the Compassionate Conservative; that's the Christian Right; that's the Corporate Capitalist.
That's the American Way.
That's what's really strange about the whole Bin Laden thing. If you're Bin Laden, or the top Al-Aqaeda operatives, you've got to be just laughing and laughing at the current state of America.
A mass population not just wholly content being exploited and voting against their self interests, but belligerently happy to argue the case for why they should be ripped off.
I actually met a guy who explained to me he doesn't care about civil liberties, Iraqi refugees etc, and only cares about protecting him and his family. So I explained to him that him and his family are being exploited, taken advantage of, and manipulated - and he's letting all of that happen to himself, and his family; he still didn't seem to get it.
It's one thing to have a concious about the war - the deaths and carnage it causes to the Iraqi citizenry. It's completely another when you turn to America, and begin to explain how the war affects US, our pocketbooks, and how we're really being exploited. Basically, for the guy above, it didn't even matter that he was being ripped off, he was delluded. And I bet this was a guy from like Wyoming - we all know the terrorists are just dying to hit Wyoming.
How much is a human life worth?
Our (America's) problem with this war (conflict) is that we measure it in dollars. In America everything is measured up against the dollar bill. A person's success depends on how fat their wallet is. Our big houses and fancy cars are a testament to the fact we are doing well right?
So how much is a human life worth? How much are tears worth?
The insane are running the insane asylum!
Three trillion here, three trillion there. Pretty soon you'll be talking about some real money.
First of all... on this occasion, Bush didn't lie, we just misinterpreted him when he projected to us that the war would be self-financing. He and his buddies are doing very well, thank you very much.
it's all about taking your cash to keep that bubble up.
One can't even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9-11," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto, .....
Actually, we could put a price tag on it. Someone probably has done it. Then we can add the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which will go on for decades to that. Bin Laden probably never imagined he would succeed so well... and still be around to enjoy it.
The wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and possibly Iran have their roots in 1913 with the Brainless Woodrow Wilson and crook brain House.
They did the bidding of bankers and arranged for war loans to be paid by everyone via the two-edged sword of the 16th amendment and Institutional Robbery. The proper name of the latter is The Federal Reserve System.
C'mon now, it's just a tad over the estimated 50 - 60 billion.
Mastershake, this situation you described about the guy who was belligerently happy to argue a case (in favour of war in Iraq) for a state of affairs which he doesn't seem to realise is ripping himself off. He seemed to believe it made him safer, you seem to argue it actually doesn't and what's more it it is costing him financially too (3 Trillion Dollars the latest estimates since Iraq invasion).
I would suggest though that this state of affairs is not isolated to the war in Iraq.
A massive example of this is the meat industry. (Let's set aside for this argument the health factors and last but not least the cruelty involved and focus just on the element of self-interest of needing a planet with a particular climate to live on.) Despite overwhelming evidence that meat has heavily contributed in a number of dynamic ways to the environmental crisis upsetting the global climate, it is projected that meat consumption is only going to dramatically increase.
The math though is pretty simple, not simplistic.
* harvesting meat uses up much more crop (about 10 times as much) than harvesting crops for direct human consumption
* thus harvesting meat results in the clearing of more forests
* lack of forests means more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
* more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, globe gets warmer
* harvesting meat contributes to over 36% of all human industrial output of methane into the atmosphere
* methane is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide
* meat consumption projected to increase over coming years
...so you can see the picture... if we wanted to heat the globe up more rapidly, eating meat, promoting it as something a responsible Mum would feed her family is exactly what we would be doing. And millions of Americans will argue that meat is their God given right, that it is unAmerican to not eat meat, that there is something quite impotent about being anything other than a meat-eater.
It was once the same for Americans with driving big cars - ah, the Hummer... still is for some. And smoking cigarettes (how is that Marlboro man doing?) Teenagers are arguably politically numb, spiritually bankrupt, materially obsessed, all form and no substance, and those who are not might have a defeatist perspective given that it is 60 year old self-serving warlords and industrialists who have hijacked their future and leaving them nothing but the uncertainty of the sustainability of life on this planet.
At the end of the day, compassion itself, without understanding the implications of greenhouse emissions, might have been enough to save us all from the environmental catastrophie which looms. The same with what we do to animals as what we are doing to Iraqis - compassion might have spared us from the costs we are now left in one way or another to pay.
It's probably not too late to start living more compassionately. Whether or not that is possible is a question of culture. Frankly, at this point in time, I don't see any nation nor any statesman having what it takes. The system of elections of governments is based not on compassion but on competition and rivalry. I'd be fascinated to hear a theory of how we could manipulate the capitalist consumerist system to turn it against itself and bend us out of this spiritual and global crisis.
speakeroftruth:
One of the points I was trying to get accross is that, even given the exploitation, costs and adverse affects to each and every American, Americans STILL do not care about the consequences of the war. I'm putting that aside from the carnage, the 200,000+ Iraqi's Killed, 4 million refugees, 4,000 Americans killed and so on.
Many Americans don't even care about how the war affects THEM, much less anyone else. These people have let paranoia and fear cloud their better judgement, and now act against even their own self interests, let alone the collective interests of the nation and Iraq.
They likely wouldn't care, you could rip them off for thousands more - and they will be for tens of thousands more. They won't care unless they actually had to go and fight/serve, and see the carnage for themselves. We live in a bubble nation, an island just completely disconnected from reality, and more than content being ignorant.
Illegally invading Iraq: $3 Billion
Tax Cuts for the Rich: $10 Billion
Turning the USA into a Fascist Imperial State: Priceless
I can remember seeing Cheney on meet the press with Tim Russert and he said with Iraqs resources this wasn't going to cost us much at all. All the lies they told and they are still in office. Laws seem only for us citizens to obey not our tyrants.
This finacial aspect is much more damaging than what any potential terrorists could have done to us. I knew this would be the case an told anybody at the time who would listen. This war is destroying us, plain and simple.
To top it off these same clowns are the ones who did 9/11. It's a fact and the sononer we deal with it the better.
The multinational pirate corporations do not care if they bankrupt the USA. They are above nationality. They can buy a new country with their profits.
And here is more information that American media prefers to ignore.
Iraq war 'caused slowdown in the US
complete article:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html
Not only is the "war" cost over $3 Trillion but debt management policies have spilled over into even larger financial arenas.
excerpt:
" The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.
"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said.
"That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said."
The three-trillion dollar war will now be defended even more deviously than by the principals of the eight-year-long Bush administration.
The reason is that John McCain is, more than a military man, an extremely bad romance novelist.
As McCain outlines his fiction for post-withdrawal Iraq-- to ensure that it never happens-- Lord Petraeus, the man whose name has a ring to it-- will become more and more the main character.
We won't go into the reason for Petraeus'
rise, his subjugation of Mosul province and what has happened there since.
We'll learn to think of Al Quaeda as seekers of a base establishment in post-American Iraq without questioning why that should be so.
What exactly will be the attraction-- the American Embassy? Does Al Quaeda want to establish casinos? Does Al Quaeda especially want a country where the lights don't work?
Could it be that McCain is suffering from Alzheimers and has confused the domino theory of Vietnam with Iraq?
Look, this line of thought is just a beginning. But if people don't actively start mocking the mockable McCain and KEEP AT IT for the next year, he well could defeat Obama, Clinton or anyone else with his grandfatherly-- concealed fascist-- manner.
Let's not forget that the American Peoples are to blame for the mess the USA is in. Even though the Supreme started this mess, it's inconceivable that this international Mafia would be put back in office a second term. After four years it seems that everyone would have known what they had. Yes, it is the voting public's fault.
What is Cheney's cut?
With the monies wasted on this needless war, Social Security could have been secured for many additional years.
canuck chuck (4:34) nailed it precisely. A perfect example is Halliburton moving their corporate headquarters to Dubai. The corporate masters pledge allegiance to no country. Eventually, when they finish raping and plundering the earth they will have no place left worth buying. They seem to have no concern for leaving a habitable earth for their grandchildren. The question is how much damage they (/we)will do before they(/we) are controlled.
The very, very first thing the Democrats should have done in January 2007 was to separate appropriations for the Iraq War from those for the Afghanistan War to kick the props out from under George Bush's phony connection of the two.
Since a corporation has the rights of an indvidual maybe we could reinstate the draft and draft corporations, the the CEOs would start a protest movement and march in the streets and sing protest songs and.... sorry went off my meds.
We will either pay the $10,000 a piece in inflated money or we will default, or we will suffer under a long recession or depression. Considering the transfer of our production to other countries I assume we will not default. The kind of massive inflation needed will not be controllable or predictable so my guess is that a long term recession or depression is what they will shoot for.
What the poor should insist on is massive military cuts.
What we will get is anybodies guess. I assume the poor will have to take it on the chin like in the depression.
If they don't fight they will die with a whimper. If they fight some will die with a bang.
I believe the "price tag" was less than 100 billion... That other 2900 billion is just "cost overrun". Now, what was it that Grover was saying about a bathtub?
Kucinich, Paul, Nader, Edwards, McKinney, Moore and others. Americans could elect a president who would help create a more peaceful world and prosperous America but they don't do the homework, get sucked in by the plutocrats and we get more of the same. Ignorance is not bliss!
OBSCENE. OBSCENE.
Half the oil used by the USA is used by the military. Halve the military, halve the oil consumption, halve the dependence on foreign oil. Pull out of Iraq, tell the Saudis it's their problem and they can sell their oil to China.
Mastershake: Where did you get a figure of 200,000 Iraqi dead? My reading says it is 1.2 million.
wcdevins: I appreciate your comment but 1/2 of 1/2 is 1/4.