Iraq war costs continue to climb

[ProSense]

Iraq war costs continue to climb

U.S. military struggles to repair, replace hardware

By Jonathan Weisman
The Washington Post
Updated: 1:07 a.m. ET April 20, 2006

With the expected passage this spring of the largest emergency spending bill in history, annual war expenditures in Iraq will have nearly doubled since the U.S. invasion, as the military confronts the rapidly escalating cost of repairing, rebuilding and replacing equipment chewed up by three years of combat.

The cost of the war in U.S. fatalities has declined this year, but the cost in treasure continues to rise, from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found.

Annual war costs in Iraq are easily outpacing the $61 billion a year that the United States spent in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972, in today's dollars. The invasion's "shock and awe" of high-tech laser-guided bombs, cruise missiles and stealth aircraft has long faded, but the costs of even those early months are just coming into view as the military confronts equipment repair and rebuilding costs it has avoided and procurement costs it never expected.

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The issue will be hotly debated next week when the Senate takes up a record $106.5 billion emergency spending bill that includes $72.4 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The House passed a $92 billion version of the bill last month that included $68 billion in war funding. That funding comes on top of $50 billion already allocated for the war this fiscal year.

more...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12394937/from/RSS/

http://www.johnkerry.com/action/deadline/?sc=e.20060418

[izzie]

1. and they talk it up all wrong. They keep adding in to the pie this.

SS and that is not tax money but makes the defense slice of the pie smaller when you add that in. It is like the COLA. When something gets to high they drop it off the list. Both parties do this stuff.