| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
09 Jan 2006 10:51:36 PM |
| Object: |
The $2 trillion price tag on Bush's insane war |
From Reuters, 1/9/06:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060110/ts_nm/iraq_cost_dc
Cost of Iraq war could top $2 trillion: study
By Jason Szep
BOSTON (Reuters) -
The cost of the Iraq war could top $2 trillion, far above the White
House's pre-war projections, when long-term costs such as lifetime
health care for thousands of wounded U.S. soldiers are included, a
study said on Monday.
Columbia University economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer
Linda Bilmes included in their study disability payments for the
16,000 wounded U.S. soldiers, about 20 percent of whom suffer serious
brain or spinal injuries.
They said U.S. taxpayers will be burdened with costs that linger long
after U.S. troops withdraw.
"Even taking a conservative approach, we have been surprised at how
large they are," said the study, referring to total war costs.
"We can state, with some degree of confidence, that they exceed a
trillion dollars."
Before the invasion, then-White House budget director Mitch Daniels
predicted Iraq would be "an affordable endeavor" and rejected an
estimate by then-White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey of
total Iraq war costs at $100 billion to $200 billion as "very, very
high."
Unforeseen costs include recruiting to replenish a military drained by
multiple tours of duty, slower long-term U.S. economic growth and
health-care bills for treating long-term mental illness suffered by
war veterans.
They said about 30 percent of U.S. troops had developed mental-health
problems within three to four months of returning from Iraq as of July
2005, citing Army statistics.
Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 and has been an
outspoken critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy, and Bilmes
based their projections partly on past wars and included the economic
cost of higher oil prices, a bigger U.S. budget deficit and greater
global insecurity caused by the Iraq war.
They said a portion of the rise in oil prices -- about 20 percent of
the $25 a barrel gain in oil prices since the war began -- could be
attributed directly to the conflict and that this had already cost the
United States about $25 billion.
"Americans are, in a sense, poorer by that amount," they said,
describing that estimate as conservative.
The projection of a total cost of $2 trillion assumes U.S. troops stay
in Iraq until 2010 but with steadily declining numbers each year.
They projected the number of troops there in 2006 at about 136,000.
Currently, the United States has 153,000 troops in Iraq.
HIGHER COSTS
Marine Corps Lt. Col. Roseann Lynch, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said on
Monday that the Iraq war was costing the United States $4.5 billion
monthly in military "operating costs" not including procurement of new
weapons and equipment.
Lynch said the war in Iraq had cost $173 billion to date.
Another unforeseen cost, the study said, is the loss to the U.S.
economy from injured veterans who cannot contribute as productively as
they otherwise would and costs related to American civilian
contractors and journalists killed in Iraq.
Death benefits to military families and bonuses paid to soldiers to
re-enlist and to sign up new recruits are additional long-term costs,
it said.
____________________________________________________
$2 trillion? So what? The market went over 11000 today. :>(
Harry
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| User: "rms" |
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| Title: Re: The $2 trillion price tag on Bush's insane war |
10 Jan 2006 08:23:26 AM |
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Cost of Iraq war could top $2 trillion: study
Notice the absolute silence of rightards. It's deafening.
rms
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| User: "A Veteran for Peace" |
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| Title: Re: The $2 trillion price tag on Bush's insane war |
10 Jan 2006 12:10:00 PM |
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In article <gaf6s1dj85veb7m1a00ca7oqksf3a25hho@4ax.com>,
Harry Hope <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
From Reuters, 1/9/06:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060110/ts_nm/iraq_cost_dc
Cost of Iraq war could top $2 trillion: study
and
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0110/dailyUpdate.html
--
Impeach Bush ! a noble cause
And visit.. alt.impeach.bush
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