From The Detroit News, 7/25/05:
http://www.detnews.com/2005/nation/0507/25/A05-257768.htm
Conflicts' costs may exceed $700 billion
War in Iraq, Afghanistan saddles U.S. taxpayers with enormous debt,
critics say; deficit spending blamed.
By James Sterngold / San Francisco Chronicle
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost taxpayers $314
billion, and the Congressional Budget Office projects additional
expenses of perhaps $450 billion over the next 10 years.
That could make the combined campaigns, especially the war in Iraq,
the most expensive military effort in the last 60 years, causing even
some conservative experts to criticize the open-ended commitment to an
elusive goal.
The concern is that the soaring costs, given little weight before now,
could play a growing role in U.S. strategic decisions because of the
fiscal impact.
"Osama (bin Laden) doesn't have to win; he will just bleed us to
death," said Michael Scheuer, a former counterterrorism official at
the CIA who led the pursuit of bin Laden and recently retired after
writing two books critical of the Clinton and Bush administrations.
"He's well on his way to doing it."
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan
Washington think tank, has estimated that the Korean War cost about
$430 billion and the Vietnam War cost about $600 billion, in current
dollars.
According to the latest estimates, the cost of the war in Iraq could
exceed $700 billion.
Put simply, critics say, the war is not making the United States safer
and is harming U.S. taxpayers by saddling them with an enormous debt
burden, since the war is being financed with deficit spending.
One of the most vocal Republican critics has been Sen. Chuck Hagel of
Nebraska, who said the costs of the war -- many multiples greater than
what the White House had estimated in 2003 -- are throwing U.S. fiscal
priorities out of balance.
"It's dangerously irresponsible," Hagel said in February of the war
spending.
Democrats have also raised concerns about the apparent lack of an exit
strategy and the fast-rising costs, particularly since President Bush
has chosen to pay for the war with special supplemental appropriations
outside the normal budget process.
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As of today, at least 1,777 members of the U.S. military have died
since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an
Associated Press count. Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush
declared major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,636 U.S.
military members have died, according to AP's count.
Harry
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