"Iraq war set to be more expensive than Vietnam" Independent/UK

[TexasLawyer]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article360657.ece

27 April 2006 21:19

Iraq war set to be more expensive than Vietnam
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 28 April 2006

The Iraq war has already cost the United States $320bn (£180bn), according to an authoritative new report, and even if a troop withdrawal begins this year, the conflict is set to be more expensive in real terms than the Vietnam War, a generation ago. The estimate, circulated this week by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), can only increase unease over the US presence in Iraq, whose direct costs now run at some $6bn a month, or $200m a day, with no end in sight.

The Bush administration has refused to provide any specific overall figure for the war's cost. But the Senate is set to approve another emergency spending bill in May, meaning that Iraq will have consumed $101bn in fiscal 2006 alone, almost double the $51bn of 2003, the year of the invasion itself - and all at a time when the federal budget deficit is running at near record levels. But these figures pale beside what lies in store, the CRS says in its analysis. The Bush administration is desperate to announce a reduction in the 130,000-strong US force before November's mid-term elections, where public disillusion with the war threatens disaster for the Republicans.

However, even if everything goes relatively smoothly, costs until a phase-out is complete could top $370bn. This would make the Iraq conflict, now into its fourth year, more expensive financially than the Vietnam War, which lasted eight years. Vietnam claimed 58,000 American lives, far more than the almost 2,400 lost in Iraq thus far. But in today's dollars it cost "only" $549bn, much less than the $690bn for Iraq, and a projected combined $811bn bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is a far cry from the weeks before the war, when a White House official was rapped on the knuckles for suggesting the cost might be between $100bn and $200bn, and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, was touting "a number that's somewhere under $50bn".

<snip>

[wookie294]

1. Osama says, "Mission Accomplished"

Osama, the great military tactician, is America's puppetmaster. Bush responded to 9/11 in ways that exceeded Osama's expectations.

[Dora]

4. The credit for this failure belongs squarely on our shoulders...

NOT Osama Bin Laden's.

He's a bad man, that's given, but it is our failure as a citizenry to boot-out this criminally misbegotten government. How much of our money has flowed directly into the pockets of Halliburton, CACI, and other war industrialists? How much of our money has been "lost"?

"America's puppetmaster." :rofl: as if!

[TexasLawyer]

5. good point

What is happening is right out of the Bin Laden playbook. From the horse's mouth--


Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech

Monday 01 November 2004, 16:01 Makka Time, 13:01 GMT

Bin Ladin directed his message at the American people

Following is the full English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech in a videotape sent to Aljazeera.


<snip>

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A1C-B21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm

[Lasher]

12. Looks like a good one to throw at Saint Ronnie of Reagan worshippers

Saint Ronnie didn't singlehandedly win the Cold War, bin Laden did.

[gasperc]

2. they couldn't invade us with tanks

so they got us to spend our selves blind

[0007]

7. Mohammad Ali The Greatest Of All Time knew how to rope

dope. I'd say he had great teachers. Go figure.

[cain_7777]

3. Money well spent?

Maybe if we put that money into education the next few generations of leaders would be smarter.

[DollyM]

6. What that money could do for health care in our country!

I read an article today that states that 41 percent of all Americans are without health insurance. In the country in which I live, that number is closer to half, not even including those who are on some sort of public aid like like Medicaid. The chances of me losing everything I own due to unpaid medical bills is a lot greater than my area being hit with by a terrorist. It seems Bush has milked this terrorist thing for as much as he can. Now he needs to wake up and realize the greater threat to his "fellow Americans" is not being able to afford health care or gasoline for that matter!

[saigon68]

8. He doesn't give a Fuck

In his mind ( a chimp mind) the reason people are poor--- is because they are lazy.

[DollyM]

14. editing my message . . .

I read an article today that states that 41 percent of all Americans are without health insurance. In the county in which I live, that number is closer to half, not even including those who are on some sort of public aid like like Medicaid. The chances of me losing everything I own due to unpaid medical bills is a lot greater than my area being hit with by a terrorist. It seems Bush has milked this terrorist thing for as much as he can. Now he needs to wake up and realize the greater threat to his "fellow Americans" is not being able to afford health care or gasoline for that matter!

We aren't talking about poor people without health insurance but working, middle income people like us. The college where my husband works as a teacher, hires as many adjunct by the hour people that they can since they don't have to pay health insurance for them. A Master's degree and no health insurance! I am self employed in a business that has been hard hit by a poor economy and gas prices. (I make dolls and own a little doll and craft shop)and I can really see the drop in business in relation to the rise in gas prices.

[fshrink]

9. And way more profitable for some. nt

[phusion]

10. K&R n/t

[tabasco]

11. The corporate cabal has been extremely successful this time around.

They probably figured they could only grasp power for four years before people discovered they were just a gang of thieves.

They actually got eight years to bilk us. They succeeded far beyond their expectations, thanks to millions of gullible people (working class republican voters).

But this is the real cost of the war:

[4_TN_TITANS]

13. Bin Laden's a radical, but he's no fool....

It is astounding how perfectly his plan is going. I do think Reagan was important in crushing the Soviet Union, though. Trying to keep up with us in the arms race on one side and fighting a loosing battle in the ME on the other caused the Soviets to bleed to death.

Thanks for the quote from Bin Laden - the dude laid out his intentions and plans right on the table. I just hate getting roped along with all the dopes in this country. <sigh>

[Toots]

15. Sheesh who could have ever seen that coming???

I wonder if those companies that make that war equipment and supplies ever make political donations???There could be no connection I am sure. Americans would never tolerate "War Profiteering" Especially the very moral Republicans. :shrug:

[Rose Siding]

16. Knight Ridder: "Equipment overuse drives up war costs"

snip>
Combat in Iraq is pushing military equipment far beyond its usual use.

For example, the Army's M1 Abrams tanks, which normally drive 800 miles a year during peacetime training, are covering 5,000 miles a year in Iraq, according to a General Accountability Office report issued last October.

M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles are being used just as heavily, while Humvees and medium and heavy cargo trucks are being used at 10 times their normal rate.

Helicopters in Iraq are being used at two to five times their normal rate.

"At these elevated rates of utilization, combat systems quickly become unusable without frequent maintenance and repair," said the report from the Center for American Progress and the Lexington Institute.

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/14458618.htm