Day: April 9, 2008

Costs Of The War

I am sure that everyone has heard one pundit or another quote the price tag of the War in Iraq–I just want you to see it in print. Can you wrap your mind around the staggering costs?

CURRENT COST

_ More than $508 billion so far, according to the National Priorities Project.

_ $1.3 trillion for total economic costs of Iraq war from 2002 to 2008, including interest costs of borrowing funds, lost investment, long-term veterans’ health care and oil market disruptions, according to a November 2007 report from Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.

ORIGINAL ESTIMATES

_ $100 billion to $200 billion, estimated in September 2002 by then-White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey. The White House openly contradicted him, saying that figure was far too high.

_ $50 to 60 billion, estimated in late 2002 by then-White House budget director Mitch Daniels.

_ $100 billion and three years to get “the country up and running again,” projected in 2003 by L. Paul Bremer, then-chief of the U.S. occupation government in Iraq.

LONG-RANGE ESTIMATES

_ Beyond 2008, between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion — or more — by 2017 for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupation, estimate Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard University public finance expert Linda Bilmes.

_ A cumulative cost of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for Iraq and Afghanistan wars by 2017, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the costs, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Candidate’s Scorecard

New thing–a scorecard for the candidate’s. This time it will be their performance at the hearings on Iraq.

McCain–Stayed on message that surge was working and that it was somehow unpatriotic to leave Iraq until it was a good and safe place.

Clinton–Very careful in her questions. Did not press the points by the general and ambassadorof the “good” conditions in Iraq.

Obama–He was the most critical of the candidates. He was forceful on the money spent and the idea that all is well in Iraq.

In my opinion, Obama had the best performance of all the candidates in the hearings. However, I will say the Joe Biden’s opening statement was an excellent one.

Clinton re-emphasized points she and Democrats had made before: that even with security gains, the Iraqi government has proved incapable of political reconciliation, and that U.S. troops tied down in Iraq are needed elsewhere.

“I think it’s time to begin an orderly process of withdrawing our troops, start rebuilding our military and focusing on the challenges posed by Afghanistan, the global terrorist groups and other problems that confront Americans,” the New York senator said during the morning hearing before the Armed Services Committee.
Obama, on the other hand, argued that both Petraeus and Crocker were setting the bar for success too high, making it nearly impossible to ever achieve goals or withdraw troops.

During the afternoon hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee, the Illinois senator argued for consideration of more limited goals: an Iraqi government that could contain if not eradicate Sunni Arab radicals and could hold its own against Iranian influences, if not expel them.

“When you have finite resources, you’ve got to define your goal tightly and modestly,” Obama said.

Iraq Hearings

Yes, I am a political geek, I watched both Iraq hearings on the tube. Just about the most boring day I have ever spent. As we would expect, the Repubs for the most part, did the “at a Boys” and the Dems ask real questions. But the Ambassador and the general gave the same basic speech they gave 6 months ago. It was a diatribe of what is going right and little said about what was going wrong. They all ask the same basic question, will the Iraqis be able to stand on their own? The answer was a 10 min diatribe of what ifs and maybes.

Then in the Foreign Relations Ctme hearings it became a bit more clear, at least for me. Sen. Biden’s opening statement was just amazing (will post as soon as it is available) Hagel ask hard questions, as did Obama, but the answers were not as well thought out as the questions.

All in all, not many questions were answered, as it was 6 months ago, basically it was all the good news we could stand and little about the crap that is really going on. The hearings at the Armed Services Cmte was all partisan, lots of back slapping and lots of questions–little answers.

The testimony before the Foreign relations was a bit more detailed than the previous hearing. Lots of excellent questions, few excellent answers. Nothing new the same rhetoric by Bush cronies. All is well in Iraq and we need to stay much longer.