[Anyone] Cost of Iraq war

[Thos Myers]

More news about the war criminals and how they destroyed the economy for
at least another generation. This has been sent to domenici

Senator:
You must be very PROUD:
Iraq war could cost US over $2 trillion, says Nobel prize-winning
economist


 Economists say official estimates are far too low
 New calculation takes in dead and injured soldiers

Jamie Wilson in Washington
Saturday January 7, 2006
The Guardian

The real cost to the US of the Iraq war is likely to be between $1
trillion and $2 trillion (1.1 trillion), up to 10 times more than
previously thought, according to a report written by a Nobel prize-winning
economist and a Harvard budget expert.

The study, which expanded on traditional estimates by including such costs
as lifetime disability and healthcare for troops injured in the conflict
as well as the impact on the American economy, concluded that the US
government is continuing to underestimate the cost of the war.

The report came during one of the most deadly periods in Iraq since the
invasion, with the US military yesterday revising upwards to 11 the number
of its troops killed during a wave of insurgent attacks on Thursday. More
than 130 civilians were also killed when suicide bombers struck Shia
pilgrims in Karbala and a police recruiting station in Ramadi.

The paper on the real cost of the war, written by Joseph Stiglitz, a
Columbia University professor who won the Nobel prize for economics in
2001, and Linda Bilmes, a Harvard budget expert, is likely to add to the
pressure on the White House on the war. It also followed the revelation
this week that the White House had scaled back ambitions to rebuild Iraq
and did not intend to seek funds for reconstruction.

Mr Stiglitz told the Guardian that despite the staggering costs laid out
in their paper the economists had erred on the side of caution. "Our
estimates are very conservative, and it could be that the final costs will
be much higher. And it should be noted they do not include the costs of
the conflict to either Iraq or the UK." In 2003, as US and British troops
were massing on the Iraq border, Larry Lindsey, George Bush's economic
adviser, suggested the costs might reach $200bn. The White House said the
figure was far too high, and the deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz,
said Iraq could finance its own reconstruction.

Three years later, with more than 140,000 US soldiers on the ground in
Iraq, even the $200bn figure was very low, according to the two
economists.

Congress has appropriated $251bn for military operations, and the
Congressional budget office has now estimated that under one plausible
scenario the Iraq war will cost over $230bn more in the next 10 years.
According to Mr Stiglitz and Ms Bilmes, whose paper is due to be presented
to the Allied Social Sciences Association in Boston tomorrow, there are
substantial future costs not included in the Congressional calculations.

For instance, the latest Pentagon figures show that more than 16,000
military personnel have been wounded in Iraq. Due to improvements in body
armour, there has been an unusually high number of soldiers who have
survived major wounds such as brain damage, spinal injuries and
amputations. The economists predict the cost of lifetime care for the
thousands of troops who have suffered brain injuries alone could run to
$35bn. Taking in increased defence spending as a result of the war,
veterans' disability payments and demobilisation costs, the economists
predict the budgetary costs of the war alone could approach $1 trillion.

The paper also came amid the first indications from the Pentagon that it
intended to scale down its costly presence in Iraq this year.

Last night, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's number two, said in a video that
hints of the American withdrawal amounted to a "victory for Islam".

The unforeseen costs of the war have been blamed on poor planning and
vision by the architects of the invasion. In a frank admission yesterday,
Paul Bremer, the first US administrator of postwar Iraq, said the
Americans did not anticipate the uprising that has persisted since flaring
in 2004. "We really didn't see the insurgency coming," he told NBC
television.

But the economists' costings went much further than the economic value of
lives lost. They factored in items such as the higher oil prices which
could partly be attributed to the war. They also calculated the effect if
a proportion of the money spent on the Iraq war was allocated to other
causes. These factors could add tens of billions of dollars.

Mr Stiglitz, a former World Bank chief economist, said the paper, which
will be available on josephstiglitz.com, did not attempt to explain
whether Americans were deliberately misled or whether the underestimate
was due to incompetence.

But in terms of the total cost of the war "there may have been alternative
ways of spending a fraction of that amount that would have enhanced
America's security more, and done a better job in winning the hearts and
minds of those in the Middle East and promoting democracy".

and this:
US Sent Pallets of Cash to Baghdad
By Jeremy Pelofsky
Reuters

Tuesday 07 February 2007

The U.S. Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than $4 billion in
cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the
United States gave control back to Iraqis, lawmakers said on Tuesday.

The money, which had been held by the United States, came from Iraqi oil
exports, surplus dollars from the U.N.-run oil-for-food program and frozen
assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime.

Bills weighing a total of 363 tons were loaded onto military aircraft in
the largest cash shipments ever made by the Federal Reserve, said Rep.
Henry Waxman, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform.

"Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone? But
that's exactly what our government did," the California Democrat said
during a hearing reviewing possible waste, fraud and abuse of funds in
Iraq.

On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially "the
largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history," according to an e-mail
cited by committee members.

It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6
billion three days later. The CPA turned over sovereignty on June 28.

Paul Bremer, who as the administrator of the Coalition Provisional
Authority ran Iraq after initial combat operations ended, said the
enormous shipments were done at the request of the Iraqi minister of
finance.

"He said, 'I am concerned that I will not have the money to support the
Iraqi government expenses for the first couple of months after we are
sovereign. We won't have the mechanisms in place, I won't know how to get
the money here,"' Bremer said.

"So these shipments were made at the explicit request of the Iraqi
minister of finance to forward fund government expenses, a perfectly,
seems to me, legitimate use of his money," Bremer told lawmakers.

Where's the Money?

Democrats led by Waxman also questioned whether the lack of oversight of
$12 billion in Iraqi money that was disbursed by Bremer and the CPA
somehow enabled insurgents to get their hands on the funds, possibly
through falsifying names on the government payroll.

"I have no knowledge of monies being diverted. I would certainly be
concerned if I thought they were," Bremer said. He pointed out that the
problem of fake names on the payroll existed before the U.S.-led invasion.

The special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction, Stuart Bowen, said
in a January 2005 report that $8.8 billion was unaccounted for after being
given to the Iraqi ministries.

"We were in the middle of a war, working in very difficult conditions, and
we had to move quickly to get this Iraqi money working for the Iraqi
people," Bremer told lawmakers. He said there was no banking system and it
would have been impossible to apply modern accounting standards in the
midst of a war.

"I acknowledge that I made mistakes and that, with the benefit of
hindsight, I would have made some decisions differently," Bremer said.

Republicans argued that Bremer and the CPA staff did the best they could
under the circumstances and accused Democrats of trying to score political
points over the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.

"We are in a war against terrorists, to have a blame meeting isn't, in my
opinion, constructive," said Rep. Dan Burton, an Indiana Republican.

And OUR children suffer for lack of education, health care and food.
You must be very PROUD.