WASHINGTON, July 25, 2008
Iraq War's Price Tag Nears Vietnam's
Congressional Estimate Puts U.S. Costs In Iraq At $648B; Vietnam Cost $686B In 2008 Dollars
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Iraq: 5 Years At War
Five years after the U.S.-led invasion, the war wears on.
The new report by the Congressional Research Service estimates the U.S. has spent $648 billion on Iraq war operations, putting it in range with the $686 billion, in 2008 dollars, spent on the Vietnam War, the second most expensive war behind World War II. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. has doled out almost $860 billion for military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world.
All estimates, adjusted for inflation, are based on the costs of military operations and don't include expenses for veterans benefits, interest on war-related debts or assistance to war allies, according to the nonpartisan CRS.
The report underscores how the price tag has been gradually rising for the war in Iraq, which began in March 2003. In late 2002, then-White House budget director Mitch Daniels estimated the Iraq war would cost $50 billion to $60 billion. A year later, L. Paul Bremer, then-chief of the U.S. occupation government in Iraq, said the war would cost $100 billion.
Yet the Iraq war has consumed less of the nation's gross domestic product than other pricey conflicts. The Iraq war's costs represented 1 percent of GDP in the peak year of the war. World War II, with a $4.1 trillion price tag in 2008 dollars, was nearly 36 percent of GDP and the Vietnam War was 2.3 percent of GDP in that wars' peak years.
The report says comparisons of war expenses over hundreds of years "are inherently problematic" because of varying definitions of war costs. For example, the report's figures for the Vietnam War are Defense Department estimates of the incremental costs of military operations - the costs of war activities more than the normal, day-to-day costs of a standing military force. The costs for post 9/11 military operations are estimated from Congress-appropriated amounts and Defense Department reports.
The CRS report warns that comparisons of costs in inflation-adjusted prices are a "very rough exercise."
"It is difficult to know what it really means to compare costs of the American Revolution to costs of military operations in Iraq when, 230 years ago, the most sophisticated weaponry was a 36-gun frigate that is hardly comparable to a modern $3.5 billion destroyer," researchers wrote.
Here are the report's estimated costs of major wars, in 2008 dollars, and their costs as a percentage of GDP in each of their peak years:
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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See all 143 CommentsWill Baghdad one day become a vacation destination of the rich like Hanoi is today...Time will tell....
How many American lives will it take?..it was something like 58,000 in Vietnam.
Edwin Starr is so right..."War..what is it good for....absolutely nothing!
Well... it was once we got the American Indians out of the way. Maybe once we separate the Iraqi''s from their oil, it''ll be ''free'' again.
If after 20 of the last 28 years of having Republican Presidents hasn''t made you realize whose has the board up your rear end, then just keep being dumb and vote for McCain.
high-rollin fat cats).
Simple equation: GNP = tp''s + fchr''s
Cost of War, or CW = money spent on war, or MW / .....well, you get the point!!
John McCain [Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/24/08]
%u201CAn artificial timetable based on political expediency would have led to disaster and could still turn success into defeat,%u201D [New York Times, 7/19/08]
John McCain [New York Times, 7/19/08]
"So the fact is that we have succeeded. We are winning. They%u2019ll come home with honor. And it won%u2019t be just at a set timetable." [CBS interview, 7/22/08]
John McCain [CBS interview, 7/22/08]
and then...
"I think it''s a pretty good TIMETABLE as we should ha ah ah our horizons for withdrawal"
John McCain [CNN interview, 7/25/08]
"... in the debate. It wasn''''t -- it wasn''''t -- and when he said what he said in December, it was after the election. President Bush fired Rumsfeld, and we announced that we are going to have a new strategy. That was the critical time.
Timetables was the buzzwords. Timetables were the ones.
And as far as Washington politics is concerned, I think my friend Governor Huckabee, sir, will attest the millions of dollars of attack ads and negative ads you leveled against him in Iowa, the millions of dollars of attack ads you have attacked against me in New Hampshire, and have ever since.
A lot of it is your own money. You''''re free to do with it what you want to. You can spend it all. But the fact is that...
(LAUGHTER)
... your negative ads, my friend, have set the tone, unfortunately, in this campaign.
I say to you again: The debate after the election of 2006 was whether we were going to have timetables for withdrawal or not. Timetables were the buzzword. That was the Iraq Study Group. That was what the Democrats said we wanted to do.
Your answer should have been no."
Now, today McCain says:
"I think it''''s a pretty good TIMETABLE as we should ha ah ah our horizons for withdrawal"
This is kind of off-topic, but does that figure include all the other costs such as the nation-building in Iraq (ie Blackwater), recruitment and retainment bonuses, vet after-care, etc? Like are they low-balling the true cost of the war? I''ve always wondered about that . . .
The policy, announced by President Bush in December 2006, pushed additional brigades in to Iraq to provide a security umbrella so the Iraqi military could build and the country%u2019s government could grow.
The surge has allowed Iraq to make improvements from security, political and economic standpoints, Morrell said. The last of the five surge brigade combat teams recently left Iraq.
%u201CBy every metric that we measure violence in Iraq, there has been a dramatic improvement from where things were before the surge,%u201D Morrell said. %u201CI''ll just point to one, and that is [that] in July of last year, we had 79 U.S. [servicemembers killed in action] in Iraq. We have four thus far this month.%u201D
The dramatic security gains have provided room for political and economic successes. %u201CYou name it, it is happening in Iraq,%u201D Morrell said. %u201CDo you want to talk about political gains? We''ve had basically all the major benchmark legislation passed.%u201D
(Hint to more Bushbots: that''s called sarcasm. Look it up sometime, with other words like "evolution" and "fiscal responsibility")
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain%u2019s chief economic adviser
John McCain [Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/24/08]
%u201CAn artificial timetable based on political expediency would have led to disaster and could still turn success into defeat,%u201D [New York Times, 7/19/08]
John McCain [New York Times, 7/19/08]
"So the fact is that we have succeeded. We are winning. They%u2019ll come home with honor. And it won%u2019t be just at a set timetable." [CBS interview, 7/22/08]
John McCain [CBS interview, 7/22/08]
and then...
"I think it''s a pretty good TIMETABLE as we should ha ah ah our horizons for withdrawal"
John McCain [CNN interview, 7/25/08]
"... in the debate. It wasn''''t -- it wasn''''t -- and when he said what he said in December, it was after the election. President Bush fired Rumsfeld, and we announced that we are going to have a new strategy. That was the critical time.
Timetables was the buzzwords. Timetables were the ones.
And as far as Washington politics is concerned, I think my friend Governor Huckabee, sir, will attest the millions of dollars of attack ads and negative ads you leveled against him in Iowa, the millions of dollars of attack ads you have attacked against me in New Hampshire, and have ever since.
A lot of it is your own money. You''''re free to do with it what you want to. You can spend it all. But the fact is that...
(LAUGHTER)
... your negative ads, my friend, have set the tone, unfortunately, in this campaign.
I say to you again: The debate after the election of 2006 was whether we were going to have timetables for withdrawal or not. Timetables were the buzzword. That was the Iraq Study Group. That was what the Democrats said we wanted to do.
Your answer should have been no."
Now, today McCain says:
"I think it''''s a pretty good TIMETABLE as we should ha ah ah our horizons for withdrawal"
All financed by foreign banks and funded by the American Taxpayer. And the neocons say the economy in the toilet isn''t Bush''s fault.
Uh-huh.
Barack Obama is not calling for change. Change is calling for Barack Obama. And he is answering the call.
yeah you could say humans have been warring throughout history. And religious humans have been the ones behind a lot of it, or at least ready with the excuses and justifications.
John McCain [Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/24/08]
%u201CAn artificial timetable based on political expediency would have led to disaster and could still turn success into defeat,%u201D [New York Times, 7/19/08]
John McCain [New York Times, 7/19/08]
"So the fact is that we have succeeded. We are winning. They%u2019ll come home with honor. And it won%u2019t be just at a set timetable." [CBS interview, 7/22/08]
John McCain [CBS interview, 7/22/08]
and then...
"I think it''s a pretty good TIMETABLE as we should ha ah ah our horizons for withdrawal"
John McCain [CNN interview, 7/25/08]
It''s official, McCain has flip-flopped to a position he used to call surrender.
sounds like a line from a comic book villain! Is that you Brain?
"... in the debate. It wasn''''t -- it wasn''''t -- and when he said what he said in December, it was after the election. President Bush fired Rumsfeld, and we announced that we are going to have a new strategy. That was the critical time.
Timetables was the buzzwords. Timetables were the ones.
And as far as Washington politics is concerned, I think my friend Governor Huckabee, sir, will attest the millions of dollars of attack ads and negative ads you leveled against him in Iowa, the millions of dollars of attack ads you have attacked against me in New Hampshire, and have ever since.
A lot of it is your own money. You''''re free to do with it what you want to. You can spend it all. But the fact is that...
(LAUGHTER)
... your negative ads, my friend, have set the tone, unfortunately, in this campaign.
I say to you again: The debate after the election of 2006 was whether we were going to have timetables for withdrawal or not. Timetables were the buzzword. That was the Iraq Study Group. That was what the Democrats said we wanted to do.
Your answer should have been no."
Now, yesterday, McCain says:
"I think it''''s a pretty good TIMETABLE as we should ha ah ah our horizons for withdrawal"
And it is the American middle class taxpayer who are seriously abused by the government as they are forced to toil everyday in order to pay for the Trillions needed for this kind of abusive government inspired war & imperialism.
Let''s count the costly wars the US has been involved in during the last 50 years.
1 The Korean War
2 The Cold War (Trillions spent on nuclear weapons & Reagan''s "Star Wars" program)
3 The Vietnam/Cambodian War
4 The invasion of Granada
5 The invasion of Panama
6 The Iraq war # 1
7 The Somalian War
8 The invasion of Haiti
9 The Balkan war (Yugoslavia)
10 The Afghanistan war
11 Iraq war # 2
There''s something seriously wrong with this picture.
Albert Einstein
Remember the "Iraq will pay for itself" promise?
They only missed that one by about a trillon dollars.......
we would fight friends.
John McCain talking about withdrawing American troops from Lebanon in the 80s.
is to put looking for it
to better hourly production.
.............
Okay, what a neat little factoid table.
Now let''s see some stats on the profits from the government contractors who are involved in the above listed wars. The profits from the war in Iraq would trump them all by a wide margin!
And I agree DaysRnumbrd , it would be nice to see, for a fact, which companies are the main benefacters in this war. I know, we already know about Haliburton, and who owns it. But I know they''re is more out there than just them.
It would be nice to see how many polititians has a stake in these companies.
Posted by danstoned at 07:32 AM : Jul 26, 2008
............
No. There is nothing "new" about Republicans tactics. They haven''t changed in decades!
It would be nice to see how many polititians has a stake in these companies.
Posted by slim1h2o at 07:41 AM : Jul 26, 2008
...........
World peace would be possible... only if it was more profitable than war.
Posted by DaysRnumbrd at 07:45 AM : Jul 26, 2008
Actually, it can be. But it would take a politician with some courage to make it so.
Ha Ha,,I made a funny,,,,a politician with courage!!,(as he slaps his knee),when donkeys fly I guess!
But seriously though, it could be that way.
But what is never addressed are the tens of thousands of troops who have come home with permanent physical disabilities, and likely HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS with some degree of mental problems.
There will be some number of those who served who will continue to pay for the next 60 to 80 years, the rest of their lives.
And John McCain says it was worth it. May he burn in He11.
Posted by omnibus66 at 08:01 AM : Jul 26, 2008
..............
Difference between an eagle and John McCain:
- An eagle breaks ground and flies into the wind.
- John McCain breaks wind and flies into the ground.
1. Millionaires
2. Suckers
Posted by terrorislamv at 03:47 AM : Jul 26, 2008
~~~~~~~~~
I understand some Roman accomplished the walk on water thing first, and he even had his horse and chariot with him.
As for turning water into wine;
Several people accomplished that, even earlier.
Anything is possible if you only believe.
How else could American voters allow the disastrous fiasco, (known as Bush administration)
these past 8 years.
How can ANY sane american even think about voting for McCain, who wears the cloak of the this administration like a badge of honor.
1. Millionaires
2. Suckers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by Smirk5 at 08:28 AM : Jul 26, 2008
Wrong, middle-class has just as many republican''s and the only sucker''s are the one''s who want to bite the hand that feeds them. Please millionares when Obama want''s to tax you don''t take it out on us middle-class voters: by cutting jobs, cutting insurance, cutting wages, and offering no job training, because that will put us in with the lower class of entitlement grabbers. Sucker''s are those that don''t understand that it''s the millionare company owner''s that provide the jobs that put food on your table.
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
Posted by Humanavance at 05:52 AM : Jul 26, 2008
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In relation to the Iraq fiasco;
Truer words were never spoken.
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