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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (171886)	10/4/2005 4:13:01 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) of 281500

I think you are missing a zero in your "low" cost estimates and that is not even taking into account the opportunity costs, let alone the human cost! Why don't you take a look at this first before talking about the monetary cost of war. csmonitor.com [Edit...Oops, I meant this link iht.com Here is a bit from there] the biggest long-term costs are disability and health payments for returning troops, which will be incurred even if hostilities were to stop tomorrow. The United States currently pays more than $2 billion in disability claims per year for 159,000 veterans of the 1991 Gulf war, even though that conflict lasted only five weeks, with 148 dead and 467 wounded. Even assuming that the 525,000 American troops who have so far served in Iraq and Afghanistan will require treatment only on the same scale as their predecessors from the Gulf war, these payments are likely to run at $7 billion a year for the next 45 years. All of this spending will need to be financed by adding to the federal debt. Extra interest payments will total $200 billion or more even if the borrowing is repaid quickly. Conflict in the Middle East has also played a part in doubling the price of oil from $30 a barrel just prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 to $60 a barrel today. Each $5 increase in the price of oil reduces our national income by about $17 billion a year. Even by this simple yardstick, if the American military presence in the region lasts another five years, the total outlay for the war could stretch to more than $1.3 trillion, or $11,300 for every household in the United States

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