Pretty sure it was the *other way* around, Laz!
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CORRECTED:
A) The U.S. is currently spending $6 billion a month just on Iraq, nearly $10 Billion on Iraq/Afghanistan (with 'wear and tear' and equipment replacement costs running MUCH HIGHER then projected).
NOTE: At nearly $10 Billion a month, this spending (even after adjusting for inflation over the years) is GREATER then military spending on the Vietnam War was in *any* given year of that war....
B) To date, expenditures have totaled an estimated $320 billion, although a supplemental bill for more is now working its way through Congress. The bill headed for the Senate floor currently budgets $106.5 billion in additional spending....
Now, three different projections of estimated final costs:
Study #1) --- A study by the Congressional Budget Office forecast an additional $225 billion in direct spending over the next 10 years, [note: above and beyond the $320 Billion already spent...] assuming troop levels fall to 50,000 in a few years.
Study #2) --- "Taken together, it is quite possible that the United States will ultimately spend more on U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan than it did on the Korean War ($455 billion) or the Vietnam War ($650 billion)," according to a report by Steven Kosiak, a budget analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments..
>>>>>> (SPECIAL NOTE: breaking out the expenditures for 'rebuilding' in just Iraq --- as has been recently reported in numerous media --- and the US is *just now* reaching the level of spending that we allocated to Germany after WW II (in real terms) --- about $49 Billion in current dollars. That is ALREADY *twice* what was spent on rebuilding in Japan after WW II.)<<<<<<<<<
Study #3) --- A third study by Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, estimated the total cost for the Iraq/Afghanistan War by the time it is all over to be in the range of $750 billion to $1.2 trillion. A big part of that, he says, is the continuing cost of health-care for the more than 17,000 soldiers wounded in the Iraq conflict. (And, of course, interest upon the sovereign debt issued to finance war operations....) |
