Posted on 08/12/2003 6:09:11 AM PDT by Brian S
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The U.S. bill for rebuilding Iraq and maintaining security there is expected to exceed the war’s price tag, but the Bush administration is offering few details about the multibillion-dollar totals.
Private analysts have estimated that the cost of U.S. military and nation-building operations in Iraq could reach $600 billion.
But the closest the administration has come to estimating America’s postwar burden was when L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of occupied Iraq, said last month that “getting the country up and running again” could cost $100 billion and take three years.
He estimated that repairing Iraq’s electrical grid alone will cost $13 billion and getting the water system in shape will require an additional $16 billion.
In a recent interview on CNBC’s “Capital Report,” Bremer said of rebuilding costs: “It’s probably well above $50 billion, $60 billion, maybe $100 billion. It’s a lot of money.”
President Bush and other administration officials have refused to provide projections, saying too much is unpredictable. That has angered lawmakers of both parties, who are writing the budget for the coming election year even as federal deficits approach $500 billion.
More than three months after Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq, even the cost of the ongoing U.S. military campaign remains clouded in confusing numbers.
Defense Department officials have said U.S. operations are costing about $3.9 billion monthly. But that figure excludes indirect expenses like replacing damaged equipment and munitions expended in combat.
Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon’s top budget official, has said that when all the costs are combined, he expects U.S. military activities in Iraq to total $58 billion for the nine months from last January through September. That includes part of the buildup, the six weeks of heaviest combat that began March 20, and the aftermath.
In other news, American troops swooped into an Iraqi village aboard Black Hawk helicopters Monday in search of a member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle. They couldn't find him, but rounded up about 70 suspects.
North of Baghdad, meanwhile, three American soldiers were wounded in a grenade attack, a day after a U.S. military policeman was killed in a bombing.
rots of ruck
The usual unnamed sources: in other words, the usual rubbish.
How much does the US spend in a year on roads? Electrical grid? Water supply? Communications networks? Probably a good hunk of our GDP goes for such things. So, Iraq will use it's hefty oil revenue, and, over the next few years, spend $600B on modernizing its infrastructure in order to be a competent 21st century nation.
I do believe that Iraqi oil will provide almost all of the revenue for this work, but I could be wrong.
Much more of the latter than the former. All these reports about "getting the power turned back on" are somewhat misleading in that in many places, the power wasn't on all that much before. Just citing one area of concern.
Iraq has oceans of oil and will soon have a steady revenue stream. There is no reason in the world we should foot all the bill for liberating them and their reconstruction. After all, this war was all Saddam's fault.
They should be grateful we don't play the old 'reparations game', where the loser paid all the costs of the winner and then paid for their own rebuilding!
Flames shooting from oil pipeline north of Baghdad, U.S. soldiers and tanks at scene
Associated Press ^ | 08-12-03
Posted on 08/12/2003 11:40 AM EDT by Brian S
SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer Tuesday, August 12, 2003
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Peaceful Middle East? LOL.....thanks for the laugh.
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