2 Trillion and Counting For Iraq War

Scott Horton of the email newsletter No Comment sent this interesting piece of information.

Costing the War. The Rumsfeld Pentagon consciously understated the costs of the Iraq War, making supplemental requests as needed and hiding war-related costs in other corners of the DOD budget. Congress let this happen. The new Congress urgently needs to exercise fiscal discipline and insure that decisions are made with full understanding of the costs associated with them. A group of colleagues of mine at Columbia, led by Joe Stieglitz, have been working the war cost issue for some time. Their current number is ballpark $2 trillion. Some of the folks working on Joe's team have faced constant harassment from the Pentagon since the first report was put out. Even this McClatchy report, resting on CBO and other reports, is very conservative. But at present this is a process question.

There are a few comments I have about this.

1). The White House knew that they had a bad reasoning for the Iraq war. That explains tailoring the intelligence to fit the policy. Why else would Rumsfeld and Cheney create the Office of Special Plans?

2). The fiscal conservative stuff the GOP preaches is politics to frame Democrats as tax and spend liberals. The tax burden has increased on the middle class while the highest income bracket has received tax cuts. The White House had to pay smoke and mirrors with the Iraq war money. Remember, how Paul Wolfowitz the Iraq war was going to pay for itself.

“There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”

President Bush is now going to ask for another $245 billion. I would like to see President Bush ask the American people if they feel they are getting their money's worth.