Accounting for the War
The Democratic co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, said today that the high-level panel concluded the U.S. costs in Iraq "could well rise over a $1 trillion." This estimate echoes the results of a study, "The Economic Costs of the Iraq War", released in January 2006 by January Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes, which evaluated direct budget costs to U.S. taxpayers based upon a gradual troop withdrawal beginning in 2006. The investment in Iraq will equate to over $3,000 per every U.S. citizen (man, woman and child).
This money was spent to attempt to remove the threat of distribution of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, create stability in Iraq, and bring democracy to the Middle East, but now was spent in a war the U.S. is not winning. Lou Dobb argued, "[t]he half-trillion dollars that we have spent in precious capital to prosecute the war would have funded a massive alternative energy development program in this country or, failing that enlightened strategy, it would have at least paid for all of our oil imports for almost four years at current prices. The question of the justifiable cost of the war and the impact on debt to U.S. taxpayers or alternative uses for $1 trillion are vital and should be debated. Another more important question relates to return on investment. If the U.S. is going to fail to meet it's goals in Iraq regardless of expenditure, how could massive amounts of money been better used to secure weapons of mass destruction (for example in the former Soviet Union, a continuing threat pointed out by Sen. Richard Lugar) or promote democracy in the Middle East (a U.S. priority shown through the MEPI funding mechanism but after an initial movement towards democracy, there has been significant backsliding). These are important goals for securing peace and security. Whether they would merit $1 trillion is highly doubtful, but as the Iraq Study Group and newly appointed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates try to figure out how to create stability in Iraq, there needs to be a thorough review of how to actually rescue the other two failing goals of securing weapons and promoting democracy.
This money was spent to attempt to remove the threat of distribution of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, create stability in Iraq, and bring democracy to the Middle East, but now was spent in a war the U.S. is not winning. Lou Dobb argued, "[t]he half-trillion dollars that we have spent in precious capital to prosecute the war would have funded a massive alternative energy development program in this country or, failing that enlightened strategy, it would have at least paid for all of our oil imports for almost four years at current prices. The question of the justifiable cost of the war and the impact on debt to U.S. taxpayers or alternative uses for $1 trillion are vital and should be debated. Another more important question relates to return on investment. If the U.S. is going to fail to meet it's goals in Iraq regardless of expenditure, how could massive amounts of money been better used to secure weapons of mass destruction (for example in the former Soviet Union, a continuing threat pointed out by Sen. Richard Lugar) or promote democracy in the Middle East (a U.S. priority shown through the MEPI funding mechanism but after an initial movement towards democracy, there has been significant backsliding). These are important goals for securing peace and security. Whether they would merit $1 trillion is highly doubtful, but as the Iraq Study Group and newly appointed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates try to figure out how to create stability in Iraq, there needs to be a thorough review of how to actually rescue the other two failing goals of securing weapons and promoting democracy.
posted by Dr. Michele R. Lyons at 7:38 PM
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