The Cost of War (4 Billion Dollars a Month)

CNBC. ^ | Monday Oct 21, 2002 | Hampton Pearson

[spetznaz]

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — When lawmakers asked the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to estimate the cost for a still undefined and undeclared war with Iraq, they got two vastly different scenarios. The estimated cost for a “heavy air war” with one month of combat, but no occupation force would cost about $21 billion. A “heavy ground war” with three months of combat, heavy ground troops and a five-year occupation force could total more than $272 billion.

ACCORDING TO THE CBO, occupation costs alone might run as high as $4 billion per month.

“If we’re going to be in there five to 10 years, that’s a lot of money,” says defense expert Ivan Eland at the Cato Institute. “That’s $48 billion a year. That’s a hefty chunk of change for the federal budget deficit every year.”

When President Bush signed the Congressional resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq into law, he said disarming Saddam Hussein and a regime change would require a long-term humanitarian and economic commitment.

BUSH’S WORDS

“Either the Iraqi regime will give up its weapons of mass destruction, or, for the sake of peace, the United States will lead a global coalition to disarm the regime,” Bush said. “When Iraq has a government committed to freedom and the well-being of its people, America, along with many other nations, will share the responsibility to help Iraq reform and prosper.”

For George W. Bush, this will not be “his father’s Gulf War,” where America’s allies paid 80 percent of the $61 billion cost for a battle that lasted about six weeks.

This time, with the exception of possible help from Great Britain, the American taxpayer will be footing the bill.

“The government is going to be borrowing, that is, going further into debt, in order to finance what these additional expenses are going to be for the war,” predicts Stan Collender, budget analyst at Fleishman-Hilliard.

So, can we afford to pay for a war on terrorism and a war with Iraq?

[spetznaz]

What do you people think of this.

[45Auto]

I wonder what the cost of America being over-run by those who would destroy liberty might be. War has come to American soil and most people are busy putting their heads into the sand even deeper than before Sept 11.

[jwalsh07]

Ronald Reagan spent a couple of trillion doing in the USSR. 4 billion a month is chump change with that perspective.

[evolved_rage]

I'm confused, if a daisy cutter costs $20,000, or lets say $100,000 to drop, then for $4 billion, we can drop 40,000 daisy cutters a month. I'd say the problem would be solved in a week... Sounds like a cheap war to me.

[aviator]

And how much is one nuclear bomb?

[toddst]

I'm confused, if a daisy cutter costs $20,000, or lets say $100,000 to drop, then for $4 billion, we can drop 40,000 daisy cutters a month. I'd say the problem would be solved in a week... Sounds like a cheap war to me.

In addition to which Iraq has oil that can be sold to pay war costs. So where is the expense to American tax-payers? Not!

[Waco]

What's the "value" of a wiped out NYC? Reckon it'd include the NYT? Hmm,,,,Gotta think about this awhile.

[Consort]

When we take the oil fields, we'll show a profit.

[Endeavor]

Well, this person thinks that the cost of not taking out Saddam is much greater than taking him out. I hope we intend on taking enough oil to pay for the expense of the war and the expense of having to ride herd on that country after we take Saddam out. We are fools if we do not do that.

[evolved_rage]

Iraqi oil. I'm just afraid we'll honor Saddam's committments to Russia and China, etc... rather than use it to pay for the war.

[Hunble]

Dang, we might just have to reduce the budget to the Sierra Club.

[boris]

How much does one atomic bomb cost?

--Boris

[Prodigal Son]

What do you people think of this.

Well, I think it's a lot o' loot.

Like all investments, time will tell if it was money well spent.

[evolved_rage]

Plenty cheap, I reckon???

[Rodney King]

The Republicans should take a line out of the Dems playbook and call the 4 billion dollar expenditure a 4 billion dollar investment for the children.

[Looking for Diogenes]

The editor mis-titled the article. It is not a $4 billion dollar a month war, that is just the cost of the occupation. The price tag of a 'Heavy Ground War' with 5-year occupation is $272 billion. Toss in the humanitarian aid and miscellaneous expenses and that adds up to a third of a trillion dollars. Spread across the next five years, that is $5 billion a month, in current dollars. Since we're in a deficit now that sum will be paid with credit so the interest payments probably bump the cost up towards $5.5 billion a month. By itself, that is not an onerous burden to the national budget. I would consider the lives potentially lost (and ultimately saved) to be of greater value, however many they may be.

I wonder what cost estimates of some recent conflicts look like in retrospect. I recall a number of $80 billion for the last Gulf war, spread over about 6 monhs of buildup and combat. That is more than $12 billion per month. I don't know what they estimated.

[RJL]

How much will doing nothing cost?

Just think how cheap, in lives and money, it would have been to stop Hitler early on.

If we allow this madman to continue to build and grow stronger the cost will only go up.

[Mordoch]

...and a five-year occupation force could total more than $272 billion.

As Democratic Senator Harkin said in refering to a couple of hundred billion, "..that's pencil dust."

After all, what's a few hundred billion of the taxpayers money?

[r_barton]

To the author of the article, I ask:

How much is freedom, liberty and justice worth?

Money means nothing if we allow our country to be overrun.

[JAFA]

Does anyone happen to have figures on how much ONW, OSW and various other operations have cost over the last 12 years?