Says the Post:
The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, and that total is likely to more than double before the war ends, the Congressional Research Service estimated this week.
The analysis, distributed to some members of Congress on Tuesday night, provides the most official cost estimate yet of a war whose price tag will rise by nearly 17 percent this year. Just last week, independent defense analysts looking only at Defense Department costs put the total at least $7 billion below the CRS figure.
Once the war spending bill is passed, military and diplomatic costs will have reached $101.8 billion this fiscal year, up from $87.3 billion in 2005, $77.3 billion in 2004 and $51 billion in 2003, the year of the invasion, congressional analysts said. Even if a gradual troop withdrawal begins this year, war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to rise by an additional $371 billion during the phaseout, the report said, citing a Congressional Budget Office study. When factoring in costs of the war in Afghanistan, the $811 billion total for both wars would have far exceeded the inflation-adjusted $549 billion cost of the Vietnam War.
Ah yes, soaring costs that surely amount to a "lie" in some quarters. Let's look at this conclusion being pushed based this CRS report a little more closely.
One, projecting the cumulative total out a number of years of course allows you to get that wonderful "doubling costs" line in the article. We can do that with Medicaid and public television subsidies, too, but we never see stories like that.
And mentioning Vietnam no matter what the subject will get you extra credit from the Pulitzer people, natch. Still, too late for this year and too early for next year.
In addition, 2003 should not be the point of departure since the enemy didn't start seriously resisting until the fall of 2003 and the jihadis did not make their full appearance until early 2004.
So we have an increase of $10 billion from 2004 to 2005; and another increase of $15 billion from 2005 to 2006. Given the wear and tear on equipment after three years of war, this not too shocking. And fuel is rather more expensive, is it not?
And given the silly complaints of lack of equipment and armor, the fact that we are spending money to buy stuff for our troops should not be shocking. We traditionally spend money rather than blood when we have the choice. We're lucky we can afford to do this. My only question is will those who complained about supposed lack of equipment will complain just as loudly about buying equipment.
And finally, consider:
War-related investment costs have more than tripled since 2003, from $7 billion to $24 billion, as money has been spent on armored vehicles, radios, sensors and night-vision goggles, as well as on equipment for reorganized Army and Marine Corps units.
"These reasons are not sufficient, however, to explain the level of increases," the report states again.
Well there you go. There's a good chunk of spending right there on top of the repairs and replacements necessary. I have read that the Army is taking advantage of the war to get costs for reorganization and transformation paid for under the umbrella of war expenditures. Typically the poor step-sister of the services when it comes to money (well, maybe Marines are a little lower down), the Army is taking advantage of the prestige of bearing the burden of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan to get money for needed transformation and equipment. I bet the Marines are doing the same. You may want to question the green eye shades methods of where you put the money in the ledgers but this is not in fact a criminal "soaring" escalation of the cost of war.
Can we get on to the next plastic turkey issue? This one is boring me already.
