Did you think the war was only going to cost one trillion dollars? Think again. I was browsing around the internet looking for updated costs of the war (since I was personally effected by these costs very recently) and came across a new book that is about to be released by the same authors that calculated the war costs several years ago to be one trillion dollars. Looks like they underestimated, see below the flip for more ...
First of all, the link to the article I found about
the 3 trillion dollar war is available. Looks like a book is about to be release on this topic. From the article:
The Bush Administration was wrong about the benefits of the war and it was wrong about the costs of the war. The president and his advisers expected a quick, inexpensive conflict. Instead, we have a war that is costing more than anyone could have imagined.
I for one would like to see this question hammered on Clinton right now, as this is one of the fundamental mis-judgements of our times, and Clinton supported (and perhaps still supports) it.
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 the question is how are we going to pay for it? How are we going to improve health care, improve our infrastructure, and invest in science and technology at this point?
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 (that's $5 million million, or £2.5 million million). With virtually the entire armed forces committed to fighting the Germans and Japanese, the cost per troop (in today's dollars) was less than $100,000 in 2007 dollars. By contrast, the Iraq war is costing upward of $400,000 per troop.
But of course if McCain is the president, we'll pay much more than what we paid for WWII.
In any event, I thought that this would be of interest and an important read to the dailykos community.