One Day of Iraq War = $720 million
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel-laureate economist and former World Bank President, has analyzed the cost of the Iraq War. His analysis makes several points that war critics have been making since before the war was launched:
- The war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted.
- The Bush administration continues to grossly underestimate the cost of the war.
- The Bush administration cost-estimates exclude the cost of rehabilitation and health care for veterans injured, who constitute a higher proportion of casualties than in any prior U.S. war.
- The Iraq War is the second most expensive in U.S. history (after WWII) and the second longest (after Vietnam).
- The cost of the war helped cause the sub-prime banking crisis, which threatens the whole world’s economy.
- The war is primarily responsible for a dramatic rise in oil prices since the war began.
- The war will cost another half trillion between 2008 and 2010 if not ended.
- The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world. Just a few days’ funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered.
An article published recently in “The Australian” summarizes Stiglitz’s analysis. A quote from the article:
“When the Bush administration went to war in Iraq it obviously didn’t focus very much on the cost. Larry Lindsey, the chief economic adviser, said the cost was going to be between $US100billion and $US200 billion - and for that slight moment of quasi-honesty he was fired.
“(Then Defence Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld responded and said ‘baloney’, and the number the administration came up with was $US50 to $US60 billion.
“We have calculated that the cost was more like $US3 trillion. Three trillion is a very conservative number, the true costs are likely to be much larger than that.” View Entire Article
Stiglitz’s mind-boggling cost-estimates are put into perspective by a recent video produced by the American Friends Service Committee: “One Day of Iraq War”. It shows the many productive uses to which one day’s Iraq War cost could be put. View video.
