The cost of war with Iraq will run from $17 billion to $1900 billion

It is interesting that someone has finally published a profit and loss statement on the cost of war with Iraq.  This cuts through all the morality and ethical issues and gets right down to whether or not we are going to make some money on the war or whether we are going to involve ourselves in the most expensive war in the history of mankind.

The Bush administration is a Republican dollars and cents oriented bunch of warmongers and so there is little doubt but that they have already run the numbers.  It is interesting that Bush's cabinet would sit around the table and evaluate a war where death and destruction of innocent people are nothing more than collateral damage; sort of like deaths from the sale of tobacco.  The deaths from cancer are more lingering than the death from bullets, bombs and napalm and they do not make headlines.

So here we have a situation of a totally amoral war where the only consideration is profit and loss, dollars and cents.  

It seems so surreal; yet the Bush warmongers have their hands on the unleashed collars of the dogs of war.  The killing fields of Iraq have been mapped by satellites and programmed into the ultimate video game computers of the Pentagon.  The most sophisticated video war on earth is about to launch and little George Warmonger is preparing to take his place at the helm of the Republic of Klingon and go where no American has gone before.

John WorldPeace
December 7,  2002

Study: Iraq War could cost $1.9 Trillion

by siobhan McDonough    AP

WASHINGTON (Dec. 6) - In the worst case, a war with Iraq could cost the United States almost as much as the government spent in the last budget year - nearly $2 trillion, according to new projections.

Researchers concluded in a study released Thursday that war with Iraq could cost the United States from $99 billion to more than $1.9 trillion over a decade.

The lower figure assumes a successful military, diplomatic and nation-building campaign; the higher figure assumes a prolonged war with a disruption of oil markets and a U.S. recession, the authors say in a study by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Both figures assume a U.S. involvement in the country for 10 years.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said it was premature to comment on cost estimates.

``War is the last resort,'' he said. ``We're hoping for a peaceful solution.''

The 1991 Persian Gulf War cost America an estimated $61 billion, but allies reimbursed all but about $7 billion. By some accounting methods, the United States may have even made a profit.

Direct military spending could range from $50 billion in a short campaign to $140 billion in a prolonged war with Iraq, said the study titled, ``War With Iraq: Costs, Consequences and Alternatives.'' The study was done by the academy's Committee on International Security Studies.

The report cautioned that aside from the estimates of direct military costs, all the numbers should be ``regarded as informed conjecture.''

Occupation and peacekeeping costs could be $75 billion in the best case to $500 billion in the worst, the study said. Reconstruction and nation-building costs are estimated at $30 billion to $105 billion, and humanitarian aid at $1 billion to $10 billion.

Economic ripples of war with Iraq are likely to spread beyond budgetary costs, with the prospect of raising the cost of imported oil, slowing productivity growth and possibly triggering a recession, the report said.

A prolonged disruption of world oil markets could cost the U.S. economy up to $778 billion, the researchers estimated. On the other hand, Iraq's huge oil resources could satisfy U.S. needs for imported oil at current levels for almost a century and otherwise benefit the economy by $40 billion.

A short war could actually benefit the United States in terms of its macroeconomic impact, which includes employment, by $17 billion. A long war, in contrast, could have a $391 billion negative effect.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1780 and based in Cambridge, Mass., is an international society of scientists, scholars, artists, business people and political leaders.

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