The Iraq War is likely to cost the United States at least one trillion dollars. That's $1,000,000,000,000, a somewhat larger number than the Bush administration's budgetary figures might lead one to expect. The estimate, reported by Pascal Riche in TPMCafe, was calculated by Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2001, and Linda Bilmes of Harvard:
The study expands on traditional budgetary estimates by including costs such as lifetime disability and health care for the over 16,000 injured, one fifth of whom have serious brain or spinal injuries. It then goes on to analyze the costs to the economy, including the economic value of lives lost and the impact of factors such as higher oil prices that can be partly attributed to the conflict in Iraq. The paper also calculates the impact on the economy if a proportion of the money spent on the Iraq war were spent in other ways, including on investments in the United States.
“Shortly before the war, when Administration economist Larry Lindsey suggested that the costs might range between $100 and $200 billion, Administration spokesmen quickly distanced themselves from those numbers,” points out Professor Stiglitz. “But in retrospect, it appears that Lindsey’s numbers represented a gross underestimate of the actual costs.”
There was also a gross underestimate of the number of deaths that would result from the war: today 140 more Iraqis and Americans died. But Bush insists, nevertheless, that he can walk and chew gum at the same time, according to David E. Sanger of the New York Times. When former Secretary of State Madeline Albright asked Bush whether the Iraq war was "taking up all the energy" of his foreign policy team, to the detriment of other dangerous situations around the world, he petulantly replied that his administration "can do more than one thing at a time."
Bush had called together 13 past secretaries of state and defense for a photo op today, to demonstrate that he is listening to the advice of experienced hands. He said:
Not everybody around this table agree [sic] with my decision to go into Iraq, I fully understand that. But these are good solid Americans who understand that we've got to succeed now that we're there. And I'm most grateful for the suggestions that have been given. We take to heart the advice; we appreciate your experience and we appreciate you taking time out of your day.
The time these former cabinet members had to take out of their day was limited, and the detail in their suggestions may have been somewhat scanted. Sanger reports that Bush allowed no more than ten minutes for interchange with the group. Brad DeLong calculates that, if Bush spoke for half of the ten minutes allocated, each secretary was left, on average, twenty-three seconds to explain everything to the president.
More than one thing at a time: spend money and kill people, that's two.
Talk about missing the mark, a lil over budget, ya think. I wonder how much this will really cost us in the end. Maybe there could have been a better way.
Raymond B
www.voteswagon.com
Posted by: Raymond B | Monday, 09 January 2006 at 01:16