http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/12/26/the-ongoing-cost-of-war/The Ongoing Cost of War
Posted by Karen Tumulty
The early months of the Obama Administration are likely to be dominated by debates over massive amounts of new domestic spending. But we also will be continuing to pay another big bill. Mark Thompson has an illuminating look at the more than $1 trillion we will soon have spent fighting the wars that have started since 9/11.:
Even after adjusting for inflation, that's four times more than America spent fighting World War I, and more than 10 times the cost of 1991's Persian Gulf War (90 percent of which was paid for by U.S. allies). The war on terror looks set to surpass the cost the Korean and Vietnam wars combined, to be topped only by World War II's price tag of $3.5 trillion.
The cost of sending a single soldier to fight for a year in Afghanistanor Iraq is about $775,000 — three times more than in other recent wars, says a new report from the private but authoritative Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. A large chunk of the increase is a result of the Administration cramming new military hardware into the emergency budget bills it has been using to pay for the wars.
Of course, as Mark notes, the real cost to this country of these wars is the nearly 5,000 troops who have lost their lives, and the many more who have been wounded. In that sense, that trillion dollars is merely a down payment:
The trillion-dollare figure does not, for example, include long-term health care for veterans, thousands of whom have suffered crippling wounds, or the interest payments on the money borrowed by the Federal government to fund the war.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
