Iraq War cost downplayed... could be in excess of $2 trillion

Jospeh Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winning economist and ex World Bank chief economist (and Harvard budget expert... et al.) in a paper to be published tomorrow states that the whole cost of the war in Iraq could be in excess of several trillion dollars, despite making his calculations 'conservative' for estimated future costs. Much of the domestic budgetry cost for the US will come from the supporting of badly wounded soldiers financially for the rest of their natural lives. An article by the UK Guardian newspaper (see link below) quotes the report at estimating a whopping $35 billion for those soldiers who have survived brain damage alone (due to advances in US body armour technology).

Hardly surprising that the Whitehouse is now distancing themselves from the idea of fully paying for Iraqi recontruction, especially when you consider how many billions were sidelined from the reconstruction budget to further bolster security arrangements in the country.

And for those of you who haven't heard of joseph Stiglitz, he isn't a rabid anti-war pinko.. just one of the most formative modern economists around... with great experience and insight into establishing markets in the former communist countries, globalisation and the development of market institutions in the developing world.

Links:

Jospeh Stiglitz
Paper available as of tomorrow on this site

Guardian Article

Q

I got this on the Topic:


Well, now that's some SERIOS Money we are talking about here.

But where is that Money Going?

Who gets the Major Piece of this Pie?

Iraqi's sure DONT!

i hope the US govt goes bankrupt, so it collapses and we'll all be free.

Wow that is truly amazing if it is indeed true, enough to feed the planet, you cant help but think, no matter which side of the argument your on that alot of that cash could of been more effective in the greater war on Terror spend in other avenues !

And I hope that you live in the US and get to feel the repercussions of what you wish for.
If the US goes bankrupt and collapses, the effects of such will be felt worldwide, and that you can take to the bank and deposit.
I love how people make wishful condemning mentions without thinking thru the effects and affects of such a wish.


As for this topic, who ever said war was or would be cheap or not highly expensive, especially in this day and age of technology? Anyone? Source? Link? Hello?!






seekerof

[edit on 7-1-2006 by Seekerof]

Well, certain aspects of the costing you would hope is true, particularly the estimates on long term assistance for the wounded and their families, they definately are in need of long term assistance from the US treasury... if this gets cut in a cost cutting excerise of a later govt. in Washington... that would compound the tragedy...

I couldnt be bothered replying to that bankrupt usa hate comment, but i agree with you seek.

Yes im enormously suspicious about the accuracy of this astronomical figure, i guess time will tell.

Quotes

you can read the paper and find out for yourself how far you believe his data and budget estimates...

but I have to say having studied Stiglitz at Uni, his calcuations and observations about emerging markets in the former communist countries were particualrly insightful and accurate (although this is all quite specialised stuff, so I don;t expect too many people to go 'ahh yes... the good old analysis of the forced savings / repressed inflation ratios.. cor blimey!')...

check out his site... he's really groovy.. honest!

Get ready for some financial issues my southern friends...

lol, oh thats right F.D.R seperated the US currency from the gold standard... which means the US debt is an entirely imaginary number.

Ok, proceed with the spending.

hmmm... don't know about that one... gold standards, partial or otherwise still have illusionary effects on the face value of traded currency and actual values of debt...

but anyway.. gold standard or not, a trillion dollars is still no small bucket of buttons...

This is complete crap. You say 16 000 wounded soldiers need 1.5 trillion dollars?Let's count - that would mean each wounded would recieve almost 100 MILLIONS OF $$$ even those who were wounded only slightly. Are you trying to say healthcare costs that much? And the other calculations in the article are laughable too. Than they claim that Iraq war influenced oil prices to grow, which is untrue IMO, because production is not lower than before war. According to this estimations the US must have gone bankrupt during WWII and Vietnam War because the cost of those wars was much higher!!!

I think that you are simplifying this ALOT...

1) the article isn't the report (which is out tomorrow), the figures are projections past the existing 16,000 wounded, which extrappolate costs awarded for the rest of the lives of those wounded... can you give me a ball park figure for that off the top of your heaD? Nah.. didn't think so

2) Oil producation in iraq is far less than it is pre saddam... that is common knowledge (even in the US media... I read it in USA Today of all papers!)

3) Healthcare costs a lot... you just see the prices absorbed by a lifetime of medical insurance... and this will not nec get cheaper either...

4) Inflation.. whats that? Go ask someone...

5) How can you use these 'estimates' to analyse the expeditures of the Vietnam conflict or WWII? I don't see enough data to do that in the article...

moral of the story... read the paper tomorrow and then make your calculated guesses... that's what I'm gonna do...

Q

Well, Bush started out saying it was going to cost 85 billion. Yea, and Wolfiwitz said he would be supprised if the war took more than 6 months, or was it weeks?

Price List

After having a shop around, these prices seem pretty accurate...

...when you think that at least 1,228 CBU-87 cluster bombs were dropped in Afghanistan at the cost of around $14,000 per unit, I can't imagine how people found it hard to see the war as potentially really expensive exercise...

and that's just looking at the munitions side of things...

As with everything in life, when the chaps in power tell you something is going to cost *yey* much, it invariabely costs *yey* more... it's just like the Olympics...


Q

OK I'll wait for complete report, but I don't still believe those figures are true. The human losses in Iraq are in fact quite low and most of the war costs is actually for rebuilding Iraq infrastructure plus corruption to companies like Halliburton.

The key point here is this is only a study/estimate and opinion of an individual.

We all know some economist come out and make claims only to find out two months later they were wrong, therefore this is only speculation.

[edit on 1/7/2006 by shots]

I hope they did not miss the more than Half Trillion Dollars we gave to the Coalition Of The Bought And Paid For.

I often wondered if it would not have been cheaper to go in alone....

More estimates of the cost of the war



When I think what we could have actually done about terrorism with this money, and knowing we've pissed it away instead... well,

Yeah I know, 4 years+ and no attacks on US soil, damn we really just wasted all that money for no reason.