US 'wasted $30bn on Afghanistan and Iraq' over decade

US 'wasted $30bn on Afghanistan and Iraq' over decade

www.bbc.co.uk

The commission on wartime contracting blamed an over-reliance on contractors, poor planning and fraud for the waste

the report's authors warn that investments in the two countries could be wasted even after US involvement there ends.

Among the examples cited were a $40m prison for Iraq that the country did not want and was never completed

$300m was poured into a sophisticated power plant in Kabul which the Afghan government will not be able to run, and a programme worth $11.4bn of facilities

(visit the link for the full news article)

Does this count the billions that they said they lost out of nowhere and the people just forgot about it?

Report: $3.7 Trillion For U.S. Wars, $12,000 Per Person

According to a recent Brown University study, the wars and their ripple effects have cost the United States $3.7 trillion, or more than $12,000 per American.

including everything from personnel and equipment to training Iraqi and Afghan security forces and deploying intelligence- gathering drones — had cost an average of $9.7 billion a month, with roughly two-thirds going to Afghanistan.

www.globalresearch.ca...

Madness!

What's even worse is that this will just continue as people yell "Increase debt ceiling"

I mean talk about having a sucker born every minute
What is this dark comedy?

What's next?
People will complain, these same people will vote for more war mongers to elected into office

It's just another monday, that's all

www.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Wow. Way to get them back for killing thousands of Americans on 9/11.
I guess we showed them who's boss.
And I don't fly any more if I can help it - we got them back so good!
I am kinda missing the Constitutional Protections yanked away,
but this...this is money well spent.
Something tells me there's much more to these wars than they're letting out.

I am sure it is way more than the 3.7 trillion they came up with. They could at least use lube if they are going to be screwing us all.

Great thread.

It is because these war mongers don the guise of the faithful whilst the people praise their fake values. It is hopeless. Our money will continue to be wasted. It is all they know how to do.

I'd say that figure does not even come close to the actual amount wasted, considering we have no real business being involved in the first place.

How much is a life worth?

How much will it cost to care for our injured soldiers?

I could go on, easily, but I'll stop there before I get too angry...

I just watched an interesting documentary on the way money is paid out to Afghan workers.

Basically US military goes around with stacks of cash and pay it out to the village leader in the area for the labor they serve.

All crisp, clean bills in zip lock bags... Basically bribes to do the most basic task like pick up garbage out of their own streets or moving rocks. Make you wonder how much just get smuggled over to buy weapons to use against the infidels.

Originally posted by Bobaganoosh
It is because these war mongers don the guise of the faithful whilst the people praise their fake values. It is hopeless. Our money will continue to be wasted. It is all they know how to do.

The Emerald Tablets of Thoth at this link: www.youtube.com...
and this is an excerpt from it:

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
Report: $3.7 Trillion For U.S. Wars, $12,000 Per Person

Madness!

What's even worse is that this will just continue as people yell "Increase debt ceiling"

$3.7 trillion is just a small down payment on the future trillions we will reap in profits from all of the resources from the region. It's just too bad that the profits will go straight to the pockets of the already super wealthy, and the american taxpayer will be stuck footing the bill yet again.

At least those contractors and war profiteers are fighting for our freedoms here in the homeland. Money well spent I say!!!!!!!!!!

Now let's concentrate on the poor in this country that are buying beer with our tax dollars!!!!!

Fighting for Freedoms?

Ha, yea right.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Believe it or not, the U.S. military budget is fairly well documented and tracked. Money doesn't "go missing." Not in the standard sense.

The real question is whether or not the money is allocated in an effective manner. Take a simple issue, like manpower. In the military, we log every man-hour of maintenance. Typically, the more man-hours a shop utilizes of their available man-hours, the more people they will get assigned. Since the budget is finite - shops that get their jobs done quickly and efficiently (utilizing fewer man-hours for the same jobs) begin losing their manpower billets and begin to get understaffed.

There is also the overall budgeting system - a command is allocated a budget of, say, $200,000 for the fiscal year. Let's say they only need $120,000 of that for that year. They will spend the last quarter trying to burn $80,000. Why? Because next year, their budget will only be about $130,000 and the previous year was simply atypical - so they will encounter a demand for $185,000 - and have to ask to have money shifted back to them (that may have already been used by other commands).

I contend that there must be a better way to go about it - but the system that is in place is why we see some of the oddball things we do. For example - when I was at this one base, there were five of us in the shop sitting waiting on the airframers to fiddle-fart around for three days making a patch or re-attaching a few panels. Meanwhile, contractors were outside, mowing the lawn.

I mean... you've got about grown men sitting in a shop, getting paid about $2,000 base-pay every month (essentially, if you are smart with your money, 70%+ of your discretionary budget as most of your bills will be covered by supplemental pays)... why are you paying contractors?

Sure - if you've got a lot going on and your guys really have better things to do than cut the grass - bring in a contractor (or go bug another shop/squadron/det to help you out - there's almost always someone sitting around twiddling their thumbs).

I come from a family of industry workers and managers. It just doesn't make any damned sense to me to have contractors handling all the house-keeping when you are paying people more than a number in middle-management get (before adding BAS, BAH, etc on - that pretty much negate a lot of your living expenses) to sit around and scroll through icanhascheezburger.com... because they have to be there, but have nothing to do.

I mean... I know some of my fellow uniformed military will disagree - but, really, after working in a factory with a strict manager... any shore duty is a cakewalk. You can't complain about being expected to mow the lawn or clean your own work space (we had to do that in the factory, too - we were our own cleaning crews).

Of course, we are spending a ridiculous amount of money on developing # we -really- don't need. The F-35, for example. No one with a functioning brain wants the thing, but politicians are running the train right up our rectum on that one. I think it's because it's this multinational effort, or something, that makes it their pet penguin.

We really need to pull out our troops now from the middle east! This war on terror is creating more harm than good. Let them deal with their own problems.

But at the same time though we did ignored Afghanistan in the 90s until 91/1 that is.

I know a guy that went over there for a year and did very little work and came back with $160,000 in his pocket.

1 year of work and he owns a home now he was able to plop cash down on.


I know another guy that retired Federal Civil Service early to take a job over there...worked 6 months....and then permanently retired with $100,000 cash in his pocket to live like a King in the Philippines. (he likes being able to buy little girls over there).


The point is....while we may be jobless and homeless.....there's hundreds of thousands of Americans that made serious BANK over there.

Almost makes you want to kill them doesn't it?


There's also a story I heard that people from the former Soviet country...now called Georgia....were even hired by us and flown over there and were given US Federal Civil Service jobs to do things...making more money in 6 months, than they would have made in their entire life in their own country.

You see we're trying to buy new friends. Now look on Youtube and alll those boys in the country of Georgia are showing off their new Japanese ATV's they bought with their money from America.....

Too bad those jobs weren't given to Americans.....but the elite have a plan to topple Russia....and I'm sure you'll understand you being jobless to give your jobs to foreigners...is in your interest....riiiight.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


Only $30 billion? Please...

Because if anyone does the maths, its more in the range of trillions of dollars.
US Defence Budget

reply to post by Paulioetc15


I wouldn't say we need to simply up and leave.

The problem is that once you commit to something, you really have to carry it through to some recognizable form of completion. If we simply pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, neither country will last very long before being taken over by warlords again and undoing anything that has been done there.

That's not a very good way to make friends.

As for the payroll issues a few others (and myself) have mentioned - they are really quite minor. The budget for payroll and civilian contracts pales in comparison to procurement and maintenance costs. A single laser-ring-gyro is worth more than the military would pay me for two years' of active duty (all allowances included). The systems I work on are more expensive to replace than our entire command's personnel-related budgets.

And somehow, we spend more on medicare/medicaid, as a nation. I don't really get it.

My point is that, while payroll and manpower issues are easy for me to see - there are numbers out there that make pay a non-issue. The F-22, for example, will remain a high-cost burden on the Air Force despite its low operational readiness history and lack of airframes (part of the reason maintenance will be so high for so few birds).

It's easy to lose the forest for the trees. Sure - were I able to have a direct input on what we would be paying foreign nationals to cooperate with our forces, I probably would not have been advocating as much pay as we ended up allowing. I get bent out of shape over contractors being brought in for general labor while there are tens of idle uniformed military in the area. In the big picture, however, issues like that are a small percentage of the unnecessary spending that encompasses development of systems that never get used, lax standards resulting in preventable equipment damage, and the overall budget mechanics that penalize commands for spending less money than allowed.

Originally posted by Aim64C
I wouldn't say we need to simply up and leave.

The problem is that once you commit to something, you really have to carry it through to some recognizable form of completion. If we simply pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, neither country will last very long before being taken over by warlords again and undoing anything that has been done there.

I loathe hearing this argument with every inch of my soul

If their intentions were not for peace before it won't be for peace NOW
WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!

If North Korea invaded the U.S. to impeach Obama because of all the wars and secret corrupt bankers deals and occupied the U.S. and then havoc occured, molotov cocktails everywhere, burning cars, mass rape, mass graves and murder and then how would you like it if North Korea said.. well... umm....this is fairly chaotic, I think we need to stay a little longer.

How would you like that?

Lithium!

reply to post by ModernAcademia

I loathe hearing this argument with every inch of my soul

I'm somewhat antagonistic - so this is good news.

If their intentions were not for peace before it won't be for peace NOW
WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!

You start your sentence with a conditional statement and select one condition, irrespective of the others, and with no support that this condition actually exists.

Further... who is "they?" I know and know of a number of people involved at many different tiers of the logistical, policy, and manpower end of things regarding the efforts in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Getting them to agree on anything is pretty damned difficult.

Just who is "they" and how much say do "they" actually have?

If North Korea invaded the U.S. to impeach Obama because of all the wars and secret corrupt bankers deals and occupied the U.S.

What if Barbie had a hand grenade... what are you talking about?

Honestly, I'm no fan of Obama, and would welcome just about anything that got him out of office without martyring him.

The banks are 'corrupt' because of the federal reserve. Get rid of that and the FDIC and banks will actually be held accountable for their accounting practices. But that's not really what we're arguing.

and then havoc occured, molotov cocktails everywhere, burning cars, mass rape, mass graves and murder and then how would you like it if North Korea said.. well... umm....this is fairly chaotic, I think we need to stay a little longer.

That's where we're headed with Obama in the office and Congress the way it is, anyway. At least I could kill things and it be socially acceptable.

On a more serious note - Iraq and Afghanistan do not reflect those conditions. Not in areas we actually have influence over. I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's a field full of daisies - but they are both doing better than they were under previous systems. The problem is in how to get them to be self-sufficient.

And America suffers from ADHD when it comes to planning for the future. We should really bring in some Japanese and Korean business leaders to set up 'roadmaps' for the two nations. America freaks out if two weeks go by and there's not been a radical turn-around in activity. The Asian business climate is considerably more patient and long-term oriented.

30bn wouldnt even cover the logistics cost of moving assets back and forth for 1 year to 1 of those countries.

These wars are up in the trillions easily over a decade. Whats the point?

I feel we wont be able to stay much longer with all the countries being overthrown and extremist supporting groups taking control such as the muslim brotherhood. Eventually it will be a TNT keg ready to explode and US troops will have more and more problems as countries such as Egypt and Libya start arming our enemies as we arm them becuase of previous treaties that should now be void.

i feel sorry for those troops, and all of them need brought home.

reply to post by Aim64C


Really, the DOD is not known for good money management practices.

On September 10, 2001 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appeared before congress and personally admitted to the DOD losing 2.3 TRILLION dollars.