$12,000,000,000 a month.

BDx13 - 3-10-2008 at 07:21 AM

Studies: Iraq costs US $12B per month
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
14 minutes ago

The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

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Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion — or more — by 2017.

Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has done its own projections and comes in lower, forecasting a cumulative cost by 2017 of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for the two wars, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the costs.

Variations in such estimates stem from the sliding scales of assumptions, scenarios and budget items that are counted. But whatever the estimate, the cost will be huge, the auditors of the Government Accountability Office say.

In a Jan. 30 report to Congress, the GAO observed that the U.S. will be committing "significant" future resources to the wars, "requiring decision makers to consider difficult trade-offs as the nation faces an increasing long-range fiscal challenge."

These numbers don't include the war's cost to the rest of the world. In Iraq itself, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion — with its devastating air bombardments — and the looting and arson that followed, severely damaged electricity and other utilities, the oil industry, countless factories, hospitals, schools and other underpinnings of an economy.

No one has tried to calculate the economic damage done to Iraq, said spokesman Niels Buenemann of the International Monetary Fund, which closely tracks national economies. But millions of Iraqis have been left without jobs, and hundreds of thousands of professionals, managers and other middle-class citizens have fled the country.

In their book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War," Stiglitz, of Columbia University, and Bilmes, of Harvard, report the two wars will have cost the U.S. budget $845 billion in 2007 dollars by next Sept. 30, end of fiscal year 2008, assuming Congress fully funds Bush administration requests. That counts not just military operations, but embassy costs, reconstruction and other war-related expenses.

That total far surpasses the $670 billion in 2007 dollars the Congressional Research Service says was the U.S. price tag for the 12-year Vietnam War.

Although American military and Iraqi civilian casualties have declined in recent months, the rate of spending has shot up. A fully funded 2008 war budget will be 155 percent higher than 2004's, the CBO reports.

The reasons are numerous: the "surge" of additional U.S. units into Iraq; rising fuel costs; fattened bonuses to attract re-enlistments; and particularly the need to "reset," that is, repair or replace worn-out, destroyed or damaged military equipment. Almost $17 billion is appropriated this year for advanced armored vehicles to protect troops against roadside bombs.

Looking ahead, both the CBO and Stiglitz-Bilmes construct two scenarios, one in which U.S. troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan drop sharply and early — to 30,000 by late 2009 for the CBO, and to 55,000 by 2012 for Stiglitz-Bilmes — and a second in which the drawdown is more gradual.

Significantly, the two studies view different time frames, the CBO calculating possible costs met in the next 10 years, while Stiglitz and Bilmes also include costs incurred during that period but paid for later, such as equipment replaced in post-2017 budgets.

This factor figures most in the category of veterans' medical care and disability payments, where the CBO foresees $9 billion to $13 billion in costs by 2017. Stiglitz and Bilmes, meanwhile, project $422 billion to $717 billion in costs over the lifetime of soldiers who by 2017 are wounded or otherwise mentally or physically disabled by the wars.

"The CBO is only looking 10 years out on everything," Bilmes noted in an interview.

For its part, a CBO critique suggested that Bilmes and Stiglitz might be overstating the expense of treating veterans' brain injuries, a costly category.

The two economists say their calculations are conservative, because they don't encompass many "hidden" items in the U.S. budget. Their basic projections also exclude the potentially huge debt-service cost — on which CBO approximately agrees — and the cost to the U.S. economy of global oil prices that have quadrupled since 2003, an increase analysts blame partly on the Iraq upheaval.

Estimating all economic and social costs might push the U.S. war bill up toward $5 trillion by 2017, they say.

Their book already figures in the stay-or-leave debate over Iraq.

When Stiglitz testified on Feb. 28 before the congressional Joint Economic Committee, the ranking Republican, New Jersey's Rep. Jim Saxton, complained that such projections are too imprecise to help determine relative costs and benefits of the Iraq war.

Saxton said a rapid U.S. pullout could lead to full-scale civil war and Iranian domination of Iraq, "enormous costs" that he said should be weighed in any calculation.

XHonusWagnerX - 3-10-2008 at 08:12 AM

What the fuck is costing that much money?

The saddest part is that IF the country and even in theory afoard to support that then when it ends we should be rich, but we wont be... well be worse off than we are now!

clevohardcore - 3-10-2008 at 10:27 AM

"The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO)"

^^^^^^ This is a oxymoron right?

Discipline - 3-10-2008 at 11:01 AM

Reason # 348,921,488 to end this nonsense ASAP.

Voodoobillyman - 3-10-2008 at 02:31 PM

I can't comment right now of course, but I have ALOT to add to this discussion once I have left here and it is no longer considered an OPSEC issue for me to discuss such things. Stay tuned for the "real" story ladies and gents.

defstarsteve - 3-10-2008 at 03:36 PM

dud keep your ass low and come home safe
and bring everyone with you...
we need that money over here.

Siczine.com - 3-10-2008 at 06:43 PM

Imagine what all that money could do for our economy that is about to go into recession. Imagine the improvements that could be made in our school systems. We could pull back that poverty line tenfold with all that money.

barc0debaby - 3-10-2008 at 08:22 PM

We waste all kinds of money. On retarded shit, like two dozen boxes of donuts for breakfast. Theres alot of hefty people up in the navy that shouldn't be eating donuts every morning. Or slices of cheesecake everyday for lunch. Its terrible how many people we have onboard that have failed their pyshical readiness test. Which costs even more cause then you have to spend money on programs to get them back in shape.

BDx13 - 3-10-2008 at 10:58 PM

the scary part is that this is all borrowed money. doesn't matter who wins the election, the general public is gonna want them out after the first term because the economy is going to be in the shitter.

defstarsteve - 3-10-2008 at 11:34 PM

going to be in the shitter...
we have already been flused

I am thinking about looking into a new trade, something more reliable, and stable so I might be able to survive if the bottom falls out...

no one in a soup line needs new t-shirts

Voodoobillyman - 3-11-2008 at 12:02 PM

Join the military! We get 12 billion a month

There is always going to be work for us

defstarsteve - 3-11-2008 at 12:11 PM

been there done that

XHonusWagnerX - 3-11-2008 at 12:14 PM

what I dont understand is... if the US is occupying the country with all the oil in addition to the fact that there is some oil in the US to begin with... then why is the price of oil going up so high? The worst part is when something goes up in price that much it never goes back where it was originally... Im paying $2.99 a gallon and I feel like Im getting a deal!

defstarsteve - 3-11-2008 at 12:33 PM

becasue people are greedy
and the oil compnaies know we'll pay it.

they have a monoploy on the market, and if the market can stand 200.00 a barrel they will push it too it.

why charge 50.00 a barrel when they can charge 100.00 and double their profits and we still consume more then we did the year before

who can say anything to stop this when we give big oil tax breaks...

people suck and this needs to end, and when it does I have a feeling it wont be pretty
look out MAD MAX future

Six66Mike - 3-11-2008 at 06:39 PM

I don't know how they keep getting money for this or anything else. All these bills come up, more spending everywhere and bail outs...who's footing the fucking bill?

As a lender I would not give the US a dime let alone a billion dollars...it's a dead investment.

Fuck it makes no sense to me.

defstarsteve - 3-11-2008 at 07:33 PM

China is our main investor...
I was thinking about this last night, and if they pull the funding we as a nation are fucked...

we don't make anything anymore...
we are just a service industry nation

manufacturing is just about gone
agriculture is only making corn to feed cattle and corn syrup...
what do we have as a nation other then crappy pop stars, and fuck ups anymore?
no one seems to want to work for a living, welfare is a hell of a lot easier then 9-5
and dealing is easier then that.

we were outsourced to the lowest bidder, and sold back thru wal mart.
and not obama, hillary or mccain can do or will do anything about it.

XHonusWagnerX - 3-11-2008 at 07:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by defstarsteve
becasue people are greedy
and the oil compnaies know we'll pay it.

they have a monoploy on the market, and if the market can stand 200.00 a barrel they will push it too it.

why charge 50.00 a barrel when they can charge 100.00 and double their profits and we still consume more then we did the year before

I dont understand why ONE oil company doesnt step out of line and lower prices by like 1/2. If they did then EVERYONE would goto those stations. Thats seems like a perfect investment for some bored billionaire!

defstarsteve - 3-11-2008 at 08:04 PM

there is one place here in the valley that sells gas for about 10 cents less then everyone else...
it was still 3.50 a gallon when I went to fill up the other day

and I had a 10 minute wait in line jsut to get to the pump...
you are talking about chaos man if someone even dropped .50 cents

Six66Mike - 3-11-2008 at 08:38 PM

Yeah I read last year that if China or even Japan sell off 20% of their US treasury bonds the US market would collapse & likely the global economy. Japan still owns a massive amount of US debt from the 80s and 90s tech boom and China from the last 10-15 years.

Voodoobillyman - 3-12-2008 at 04:21 AM

The price of oil is not driven by the supply of oil but the refining abilities. Crude oil is relatively no good to us until it is refined and the ability to do that is limited. it is all criminal and we as a species are setting ourselves up for extinction, VERY quickly.