WAR COSTS
The $200 Billion Boondoggle
You can't put a price on freedom, but the cost of waging an ill-conceived and
unnecessary war in Iraq is about to top $200 billion
(http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-bush.html?oref=login) .
The Bush administration is expected to announce today a request for an $80
billion supplement, in addition to the "$25 billion already appropriated for the
fiscal year that began October 1st," to continue fighting the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. While the Bush administration may not want to explain the soaring
costs, it is only fair that the numbers get a closer look.
BILLIONS MORE IN BACKDOOR SPENDING: What you see and what you don't: Though the
up-front cost of the war on Iraq is already an astounding $200 billion, Gordon
Adams, director of security policy studies at George Washington University,
recently revealed that " taxpayers are spending twice as much on these wars.
(http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpada244123817jan24,0,2615606.story?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines)
" In what he calls "back-door budgeting for the wars," Adams points to the
"reduced training, exercises and operating tempo, slowdowns in maintenance,
[and] delays on maintaining facilities" as ways that the Pentagon is getting
around paying for the bloated war. Other strategies appear to be not paying
soldiers what they are owed
(http://www.dhonline.com/articles/2005/01/23/news/top_story/news01.txt) and
deducting money for debts that do not even exist. There is no shortage of cash,
however, for questionable contracts
(http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031780414203&path=!localnews&s=1037645509099)
and corrupt and incompetent corporations
(http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=297645) .
THE NUMBERS IN PERSPECTIVE: Today's supplemental request will push the amount
spent on the so-called war on terror to over $280 billion since the Sept. 11
attacks. When adjusted for inflation, this amount is " nearly half the $613
billion the United States spent for World War I.
(http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501250259jan25,1,2904223.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed)
" Coincidentally timed with the supplemental announcement, the Congressional
Budget Office will be releasing a semi-annual report that is a revision of last
year's war costs projection
(http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110661399062234752,00.html?mod=home%5Fwhats%5Fnews%5Fus)
, which revealed "the 10-year costs of the wars [would be] $1.4 trillion at
current levels of operations."
NEGLECT LEADS TO COSTLY OPIUM CRISIS IN AFGHANISTAN: Though the details of the
budget are not yet available, "at least $780 million would go to combat the drug
trade in Afghanistan." When the Bush administration went gallivanting off to
Iraq, it shifted its focus off the reconstruction needed in Afghanistan, leaving
the country free to be carved up and taken advantage of by drug traders. In
2004, the United Nations reported that "the opium trade accounted for more than
60 percent of [Afghanistan's] gross domestic product" and that the country
supplied "an estimated 87 percent of the world's opium." Afghan President Hamid
Karzai has repeatedly stated that the future of his nation depends on the
resolution of the opium problem, which has now become " more dangerous than
terrorism. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52402-2004Dec9.html)
" Apparently not learning its lesson, the White House has spent " only a
fraction of the $18.4 billion set aside
(http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-bush.html?oref=login)
for rebuilding Iraq." |
