US
war debt dances on the
ceiling By David Isenberg
Just how much have America's wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq cost since 2001?
The
truth is that we don't yet know. This is due to
the sloppiness, both intentional and
unintentional, of bookkeeping on the part of the
Pentagon and other United States governmental
agencies, and troops are still there and may
remain in reduced numbers for years to come. The
nature of multi-year appropriations also make a
definite accounting impossible at this point.
But one thing is sure. It is going to be
more, a lot more than anyone originally thought.
Thus, those cost estimates of a decade ago look
like the projections of Candide-like cost
counters, seeing the best of all possible worlds
To cite just one example, back in December
2002 William
Nordhaus, an economics
professor at Yale University wrote an article that
was a shortened version of a longer study, "The
Economic Consequences of the War with Iraq". In
this article Nordhaus, at the time considered a
pessimist for his projections, detailed many of
the costs not being factored into the estimates
being produced by the George W Bush
administration.
Back then, according to
Nordhaus "it is difficult to see how a successful
occupation of Iraq could be less than five years
and it might easily extend for two decades". Thus,
a minimum cost could range from $75 to $500
billion. When one factored in the costs for
reconstruction and nation-building the total could
range from a minimum of $25 billion to as much as
$100 billion.
You can be sure there any
number of budget analysts looking back at that
estimate as the idealism of an age of innocence,
reflecting an optimism that was not supported by
subsequent reality.
To grasp the bill US
taxpayers will eventually have to pay try
multiplying Nordhaus' 2002 estimate 30 to 40
times. That is the preliminary bottom line in a
study [1] released June 29 by the Watson Institute
of Brown University, a new multi-author study of
the costs of the post-September 11, 2001 wars.
Just to date the study has found that
appropriations have been between $2.3 and 2.7
trillion; with an additional $884 to $1,334
billion already incurred for future costs for
veterans and their families. This makes a total,
incurred thus far, of from $3.2 Trillion to $4.0
trillion in inflation-controlled 2011 (constant)
dollars through FY 2011. [2] The final bill, going
out to 2020 will run at least $3.7 trillion and
could reach as high as $4.4 trillion.
It
bears noting that these are budget costs to the
federal government, not the broader economic costs
to the economy or even other costs to state and
local governments.
All wars costs
generally look at only easily quantifiable costs;
usually in terms of the people and equipment of
the military forces fighting them.
The
Brown study is unusual in that also addresses
those broader costs, such as the human costs in
terms of civilian dead, the wounded, refugees, and
more. It found that at least 137,000 civilians
have died and more will die in Afghanistan, Iraq,
and Pakistan as a result of the fighting at the
hands of all parties to the conflict.
Putting together the conservative numbers
of war dead, in uniform and out, brings the total
to 225,000. But those numbers only consider direct
deaths - people killed by bombs or bullets. They
exclude indirect deaths, such as those who die due
to shattered health care systems.
And
millions of people have been displaced
indefinitely and are living in grossly inadequate
conditions. The current number of war refugees and
displaced persons totals 7.8 million.
There were other costs that the study did
not include. Among them were:
Future payments for interest on the debt from
2011 forward.
The unfunded costs that American paid to care
for their war wounded family member (one in five
of the cases of serious wounding has this effect)
The future costs of veterans' medical care
beyond age 67; or payments for disability beyond
age 67 for veterans
Education benefits from the new GI bill
A total for the Statistical Value of Human
Life for each troop and contractor drone strikes
and covert operations in Pakistan
The promised money, yet to be paid, for
reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq
Analysts may quibble about some of the
particulars. For example, the team included some
items - like $400 billion in increased "homeland
security" spending after 9/11 - that are debatable
as "costs of war".
Still, it is clear that
advocates of the Afghanistan, Pakistan (think the
covert operations and drone attacks), and Iraq
wars who pretend the costs have been only the $1
trillion that President Barack Obama mentioned in
his speech last month on reducing US troop levels
in Afghanistan - "Over the last decade, we have
spent a trillion dollars on war" - are passing on
grotesquely inaccurate information. The report
emphasizes the extent to which the wars will
continue to burden the US federal budget, which is
already on an unsustainable course due to an aging
American population and rising healthcare costs.
The total will continue to soar when
considering often overlooked costs such as
long-term obligations to wounded veterans,
including not only that of the Veterans
Administration but that of state and local
government spending on veterans' services, and the
classified spending on the Central Intelligence
Agency drone program in Afghanistan and projected
war spending from 2012 through 2020. The estimates
also do not include at least $1 trillion more in
interest payments coming due. The interest paid on
Pentagon spending alone, so far (from 2001 through
financial year 2011) is about $185.4 billion in
constant dollars.
Given the current budget
debate in Washington and fast approaching August 2
deadline by which congress has to come to an
agreement on raising the national debt limit or
face defaulting on its obligations for the first
time in its history, the study noted that the
current wars were paid for almost entirely by
borrowing. This borrowing has raised the US budget
deficit, increased the national debt, and had
other macroeconomic effects, such as raising
interest rates. The US must also pay interest on
the borrowed money. A few other findings from the
researchers on non-economic costs:
The
study notes that while the number of US soldiers
who have died in the wars is known, just over
6,000, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the
levels of injury and illness in those who have
returned from the wars. New disability claims
continue to pour into the Veteran Affairs, with
550,000 just through last autumn.
As of
December 2010, the US had already spent more than
$32 billion for both medical care and disability
for more than a million veterans of these wars.
Given that the US is obligated to pay the future
medical and disability costs of veterans, just as
in past wars, medical and disability costs will
peak in about 30 to 40 years, totaling from nearly
$600 billion to almost $1 trillion.
The
report also notes that many deaths and injuries
among US contractors have not been identified.
While that number is certainly not as exact as
regular military forces, there is enough Labor
Department data to say that as of June 2010 more
than 2,008 contractors have been killed in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
On top of that, more than
44,000 contractors have been injured, of which
more than 16,000 were seriously wounded. Many of
those are not US citizens who will, for a variety
of reasons not get the compensation they are
entitled to under US law. So, in a sense the
United States has already defaulted on its
obligations.
David Isenberg is an adjunct
scholar with the Cato Institute, a US Navy
veteran, and the author of the book, Shadow
Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq.
The views expressed are his own. His e-mail
is sento@earthlink.net. His blog is PMSC
Observer (isenberg.securitycontracting.net.)
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