The Three Trillion Dollar War

Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes have published a book titled The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize winning economist who was formerly the chief economist of the World Bank.

I quote extensively from an article the two authors published in The Times (UK) last week:

The cost of direct US military operations - not even including long-term costs such as taking care of wounded veterans - already exceeds the cost of the 12-year war in Vietnam and is more than double the cost of the Korean War.

And, even in the best case scenario, these costs are projected to be almost ten times the cost of the first Gulf War, almost a third more than the cost of the Vietnam War, and twice that of the First World War. The only war in our history which cost more was the Second World War, when 16.3 million U.S. troops fought in a campaign lasting four years, at a total cost (in 2007 dollars, after adjusting for inflation) of about $5 trillion.......

On the eve of war, there were discussions of the likely costs. Larry Lindsey, President Bush's economic adviser and head of the National Economic Council, suggested that they might reach $200 billion. But this estimate was dismissed as “baloney” by the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. His deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, suggested that postwar reconstruction could pay for itself through increased oil revenues. Mitch Daniels, the Office of Management and Budget director, and Secretary Rumsfeld estimated the costs in the range of $50 to $60 billion, a portion of which they believed would be financed by other countries. (Adjusting for inflation, in 2007 dollars, they were projecting costs of between $57 and $69 billion.) The tone of the entire administration was cavalier, as if the sums involved were minimal.

Comment: Americans have not yet begun to pay the costs of the wars, and so we don't really understand how devastating they are and will be. The cost will be measured in the things we can't provide our citizens (such as universal health care) and the investments we can not make (such as fully funding the efforts to increase and protect the innovation capacity of the American economy or the rebuilding of our failing infrastructure.) A recent Foreign Policy article recounts the opinion of thousands of military officers that the United States military is stretched perilously thin and is unprepared to fight the next fight (which will surely come).

Stiglitz and Brimes note also the price of the war to the United Kingdom in the Times article, and of course other countries in the Alliance had their own costs.

I continue to feel that as huge as the costs of the wars have been to the United States, our major concern should be with the costs to the Iraqis and Afghanis and other peoples affected by our invasions and occupations. Since the rationale for the invasions has been proven to be wrong, and since even if it were correct the vast majority of the suffering people had no responsibility for the conflict, our responsibility seems especially grave.

President Bush should recognize that history will judge that a part of the cost of these wars is the increased insecurity of the United States in future years! A weak economy and a weak military are not good for security in the world we face. JAD