How The Iraq War’s $2 Trillion Cost to US Could Have Been Spent

[Dunamite]

Published on Monday, January 21, 2008 by The Toronto StarHow The Iraq War’s $2 Trillion Cost to US Could Have Been Spentby Craig and Marc KielburgerIn war, things are rarely what they seem.0121 01Back in 2003, in the days leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon adamantly insisted that the war would be a relatively cheap one. Roughly $50 billion is all it would take to rid the world of Saddam Hussein, it said.We now know this turned out to be the first of many miscalculations. Approaching its fifth year, the war in Iraq has cost American taxpayers nearly $500 billion, according to the non-partisan U.S.-based research group National Priorities Project. That number is growing every day.But it’s still not even close to the true cost of the war. As the invasion’s price tag balloons, economists and analysts are examining the entire financial burden of the Iraq campaign, including indirect expenses that Americans will be paying long after the troops come home. What they’ve come up with is staggering. Calculations by Harvard’s Linda Bilmes and Nobel-prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz remain most prominent. They determined that, once you factor in things like medical costs for injured troops, higher oil prices and replenishing the military, the war will cost America upwards of $2 trillion. That doesn’t include any of the costs incurred by Iraq, or America’s coalition partners.“Would the American people have had a different attitude toward going to war had they known the total cost?” Bilmes and Stiglitz ask in their report. “We might have conducted the war in a manner different from the way we did.”It’s hard to comprehend just how much money $2 trillion is. Even Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world, would marvel at this amount. But, once you begin to look at what that money could buy, the worldwide impact of fighting this largely unpopular war becomes clear.Consider that, according to sources like Columbia’s Jeffrey Sachs, the Worldwatch Institute, and the United Nations, with that same money the world could:Eliminate extreme poverty around the world (cost $135 billion in the first year, rising to $195 billion by 2015.)Achieve universal literacy (cost $5 billion a year.)Immunize every child in the world against deadly diseases (cost $1.3 billion a year.)Ensure developing countries have enough money to fight the AIDS epidemic (cost $15 billion per year.)In other words, for a cost of $156.3 billion this year alone - less than a tenth of the total Iraq war budget - we could lift entire countries out of poverty, teach every person in the world to read and write, significantly reduce child mortality, while making huge leaps in the battle against AIDS, saving millions of lives.Then the remaining money could be put toward the $40 billion to $60 billion annually that the World Bank says is needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, established by world leaders in 2000, to tackle everything from gender inequality to environmental sustainability.The implications of this cannot be underestimated. It means that a better and more just world is far from within reach, if we are willing to shift our priorities.If America and other nations were to spend as much on peace as they do on war, that would help root out the poverty, hopelessness and anti-Western sentiment that can fuel terrorism - exactly what the Iraq war was supposed to do.So as candidates spend much of this year vying to be the next U.S. president, what better way to repair its image abroad, tarnished by years of war, than by becoming a leader in global development? It may be too late to turn back the clock to the past and rethink going to war, but it’s not too late for the U.S. and other developed countries to invest in the future.Craig and Marc Kielburger are children’s rights activists and co-founded Free The Children, which is active in the developing world.

 

[BernieEOD]

I oppose this war but not on liberal grounds. First, this 2 trillion is money we don't have and is added to the national debt. So the only thing we could have done with this money is not to spend it in the first place.Second, we currently have 2 trillion dollars, 4,000+ lives, 35000+ wounded, 6 years, and no end in sight. A long war like this is exectly what one needs to avoid if one desires to keep a nation. We are going the way of the British Empire. Britian won WW2 but lost their Empire because they neglected their economic flank.It has been said "If the ability to wage large scale war anywhere on the planet defines an Empire, avoiding such a war is how one defines keeping it."

 

[jamesrage]

(Dunamite;32516)
Eliminate extreme poverty around the world (cost $135 billion in the first year, rising to $195 billion by 2015.)Achieve universal literacy (cost $5 billion a year.)Immunize every child in the world against deadly diseases (cost $1.3 billion a year.)Ensure developing countries have enough money to fight the AIDS epidemic (cost $15 billion per year.)In other words, for a cost of $156.3 billion this year alone - less than a tenth of the total Iraq war budget - we could lift entire countries out of poverty, teach every person in the world to read and write, significantly reduce child mortality, while making huge leaps in the battle against AIDS, saving millions of lives.Then the remaining money could be put toward the $40 billion to $60 billion annually that the World Bank says is needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, established by world leaders in 2000, to tackle everything from gender inequality to environmental sustainability.The implications of this cannot be underestimated. It means that a better and more just world is far from within reach, if we are willing to shift our priorities.If America and other nations were to spend as much on peace as they do on war, that would help root out the poverty, hopelessness and anti-Western sentiment that can fuel terrorism - exactly what the Iraq war was supposed to do.So as candidates spend much of this year vying to be the next U.S. president, what better way to repair its image abroad, tarnished by years of war, than by becoming a leader in global development? It may be too late to turn back the clock to the past and rethink going to war, but it’s not too late for the U.S. and other developed countries to invest in the future.Craig and Marc Kielburger are children’s rights activists and co-founded Free The Children, which is active in the developing world.
Most tax payers would have been against all those things and the media would still be doing "do you know that that money could have been spent on instead" editorials.

 

[Dunamite]

I hope that discussion can get away from the past and look forward. There are ongoing costs related to the occupation. There are very real needs both in America and in the rest of the globe. It is tax payers dollars.Is this the best use of your money? If so, explain. If not, where would you like to see it go?Is it realistic to consider other scenarios than to fatalistically say that the situation in Iraq will go on for the foreseeable future? What are the realistic options?I read an article recently on the U.S. economy that focused on the plight of cities which have on-going costs, but their tax base has been decimated by the housing and debt crisis (i.e. people unable to keep their homes, houses being boarded up, cities having to patrol the streets to protect property that has been foreclosed, etc.). They are hurting and the infrastructure was strained to begin with. Hurricane Katrina victims are still waiting. California wildfire victims need help. The list goes on and on. This is happening against the backdrop of sky is the limit defense spending. How long is the tenable? What is the mood and patience level in the country?Blessings, Dunamite

 

[jamesrage]

(Dunamite;32994)
Is this the best use of your money?
Not really but waiting until the enemy attacks you is the wrong and more costly thing to do.What would have better wait until Saddam got his hands on Nukes,used them and then attack him thus resulting in the loss of more American lives or we attack him when every politician out there thinks he has WMDs?
If so, explain. If not, where would you like to see it go?
I would like to see the money be used to build a wall on our border,secure it and our borders with the military.But I know even if it was peace time with no wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan border security would not see any money.
Is it realistic to consider other scenarios than to fatalistically say that the situation in Iraq will go on for the foreseeable future? What are the realistic options?
Those options are not realistic because what where the politicians doing with our money before Iraq and Afghanistan?

 

[BernieEOD]

(jamesrage;33372)
Not really but waiting until the enemy attacks you is the wrong and more costly thing to do.What would have better wait until Saddam got his hands on Nukes,used them and then attack him thus resulting in the loss of more American lives or we attack him when every politician out there thinks he has WMDs?I would like to see the money be used to build a wall on our border,secure it and our borders with the military.But I know even if it was peace time with no wars going on in Iraq and Afghanistan border security would not see any money.Those options are not realistic because what where the politicians doing with our money before Iraq and Afghanistan?
Even if Saddam built a nuclear weapon, he had no means of delivering it.We are not the BATF of the world. The world is not going to submit to us nor should it. If we don't want to be attacked, we shouldn't be all over the world forcing our ways down the throats of other nations.