Iraq: The Costs of War

The Costs of the Iraq War

The U.S. officially transferred political authority to Iraqi officials in a hasty five-minute ceremony. Due to security concerns, the transfer of political authority to an interim Iraqi government was conducted two days prior to the planned June 30 handover. Also, NATO countries put aside differences and agreed to provide emergency military training for the new government.

What has been the cost of the Iraq war?

The Institute for Policy Studies report, "Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War," outlines the casualties and increased military spending by the U.S. and other nations in the Iraq war and occupation. Estimates include 952 coalition forces killed between the start of war to June 2004. Of that total, 693 U.S. military men were killed after President Bush declared the end of combat operations in May 2003. As of June 2004, between 9,436 and 11,317 Iraqi civilians have been killed. In terms of the domestic military budget, Congress is expected to approve $25 billion in addition to the $126.1 billion it has already approved. That leaves a total of $151.1 billion. Phyllis Bennis, author of "Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War," discusses the report. She was online Tuesday, June 29, at Noon ET.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Phyllis Bennis: Good morning. Before we start this discussion of the consequences of yesterday's so-called "transfer of power" to a supposedly "sovereign" Iraq, I just want to be sure to let everyone know about a new report we have just issued. The Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus published "Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of War in Iraq" last week, documenting the huge price tag ($151 billion, thousands of Iraqi and hundreds of American lives, and costs to the environment, human rights, and more) we are paying for this debacle of preventive war and a drive towards empire. It's available on our website at www.ips-dc.org. Now let's chat!

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Arlington, Va.: I think you have put togeher some very useful numbers. It would be interesting to compare these figures to the cost of our previous policy of sanctions and containment. Has anyone put together numbers on the economic cost of the oil embargo, the Iraqi lives lost under the embargo, and the cost of the U.S. military presence in the region?

Phyllis Bennis: It's a good idea to start with the impact of sanctions -- that's the part of Iraq's pre-war history we are encouraged to forget. People were devastated by U.S.-led economic sanctions, and Iraq's economy plummeted. The main reason the infrastructure was in such bad shape already was because of sanctions.
There's lots of good information on this -- if you go to the IPS website (ips-dc.org) or that of the American Friends Service Committee (afsc.org) they'll have lots of the numbers.

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Greenbelt, Md.: So where does the missing $20 billion from Iraq reconstruction funding fit into this accounting? Will there be accountability for the (apparently) stolen money, or will the miscreants get away with stealing from the Iraqi people?

Phyllis Bennis: We're hearing practically nothing in the U.S. press about the $20 billion -- BBC talked about it, but little here. It's part of the Iraqi money -- NOT u.s. money but iraqi money! -- that came from the pre-war oil-for-food program, and other sources. Supposedly in U.S. custody, but somehow no one can acount for it. Would be good to have a broader public demand on government officials and the media to start paying attention to this.
If the first year of the war is any indication, these war perpetrators have been given virtual immunity from any accountability. If they weren't accountable --even to the American people -- BEFORE the war, how likely is it they'll be accountable to the Iraqi people now?

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Washington, D.C.: Why were there so many miscalculations for the cost of the war in both lives and money? Why didn't the Bush Administration look at the consequences of going to War in Iraq when we were already immersed in Afghanistan? Why won't the Bush Administration listen to viewpoints that are not their own? There are a lot more 'Why's' the American public has, why aren't they being addressed?

Phyllis Bennis: All your "whys" are crucial. I think for the Bush administration it was less a matter of "miscalculation" than of "non-caluculation." That is, the policy of preventive war (they call it pre-emptive, but it isn't even that -- there was no imminent threat in Iraq, which would be required for a pre-emptive war) was a policy driven by ideology, ignoring the realities on the ground.
So even when some Bush officials DID acknowledge the likely cost (Lawrence Lindsay, who said it would cost $100-$200 billion, got fired. The Pentagon's top army general, Eric Shinseki, said it would require hundreds of thousands of troops and was dissed by Paul Wolfowitz) they were ignored.
This wasn't about assessing realities on the ground and weighing options. This was about a decade- or more- old goal of invading Iraq, and a new potential after September 11th for doing that.
You might want to take a look at the first chapter of my book, Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis.
Thanks for your question...

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Washington, D.C.: Hello,

I wish people never put a dollar ($) face value on wars. Why do we measure costs of wars with dollar ($)? Don't you believe that the moment we put price value on war, it worth fighting it? Isn't war an international business and isn't that what capitalism is all about? I believe the only high cost and price that all sides pay in a war are: the loss of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Phyllis Bennis: Well, I agree with you that there are many many costs of wars. What we did in our report was to try and look at ALL those costs, especially those that don't ordinarily get counted. We looked at the human cost, in dead and wounded, the financial costs and their social consequences in U.S. domestic and international policies, environmental costs, costs in human rights norms, costs to security, costs to political sovereignty, and more.
War has been and remains a hallmark of capitalism, as you say, and this phase of economic life known as 'globalization' has continued the pattern.

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Iowa: I realize that you have been assembling much good information on the actual costs of the war in Iraq. But I wonder where one might find solid information on precisely who/what corporations are benfitting financially from the war? (I saw M. Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 last night and it certainly gives you pause about the "business opportunities" it presented to some.)

Phyllis Bennis: There are a bunch of organizations monitoring the corporate profiteering in Iraq, the role of private military contractors, etc. They include CorpWatch, the Institute for Southern Studies, Iraq Revenue Watch -- those three should give you a good start, and their websites will have links to others.

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Washington, DC: Has contracting bidding resumed in Iraq -or is still being tightly controlled by the U.S.?

Phyllis Bennis: It still is tightly controlled -- the bulk of the $18 billion that was allocated is still in U.S. hands to determine who gets the contracts, and even which projects should be taken on.

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Perth, Western Australia: Hello Phyllis,

Will the coalition, including Australia, be able to reduce its commitment to Iraq now?

Thanks, Andrew.

Phyllis Bennis: The "coalition" never played a major military role. Although a number of countries have lost some soldiers, including Italy with 18, the U.S. remains by far the only serious military presence. It's a political question -- your prime minister was the only one of the U.S. allies who responded with such enthusiasim to yesterday's false claims of Iraq's "sovereignty" -- but I think that has more to do with Australia's and Howard's efforts to show themselves as the greatest friends of the U.S., than it does with any real military issues.
The "coalition" forces could ALL be withdrawn -- and should be! -- if people in all those countries keep up enough pressure on their governments. Then the U.S. unilateralism will stand much more sharply exposed than it looks like with this "Coalition of the Coerced."

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Washington, DC: Ms. Bennis, while I don't disagree with your statement that sanctions affected Iraq's infrastructure, shouldn't it be balanced with the obvious excesses of Saddam Hussein's government? Were the lavish palaces paid for with his own money, or with money that could've been going to support and improve Iraqi infrastructure?

Phyllis Bennis: There was plenty of misuse of Iraq's money during the years of the Baathist regime under Saddam Hussein. Some of the palaces were obviously lavish, wasteful and corrupt examples of meglomania -- but in the calculations we did in those days in the anti-sanctions movement, it became clear that even if Saddam Hussein had spent every penny of the smuggled oil funds that he had access to on food and medicine, rather than his military or the palaces, it still wouldn't have been enough to feed and care for the population of 24 million people, simply because there wasn't enough money coming in. Between the destruction of the Iran-Iraq and U.S. wars and the effect of crippling tightly-imposed sanctions, it was just insufficient. Estimates were that there was about $1 billion a year available to Saddam Hussein out of smuggled oil -- for a population of that size, it wouldn't even begin to do the job.

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Ellicott City, Md.: Given the heightened security, it seems that many public works projects in Iraq have been put on indefinite hold. Has this in effect been a cost savings or has the money been redirected to security needs, and so in effect raising the overall cost if we still plan to do these improvements.

Phyllis Bennis: I think there are two parts to answer your question. The security situation has indeed made serious reconstruction virtually impossible. Oil pipelines are particularly vulnerable, continued military assaults on cities, and fear of people are all key factors.
But beyond that -- the U.S. simply has not used even all the money it itself allocated for reconstruction. It just isn't a priority to really rebuild the country -- if it was, they would be hiring local Iraqi contractors and labor, rather than these criminally expensive super-contractors like Halliburton on "cost-basis" contracts who are still not, even with the billions they're being paid, really rebuilding things. Cost-basis means the contract isn't for a specific amount of money -- rather, Halliburton (or Bechtel, or whoever...) submits bills for the cost of equipment, employees, whatever, and then their profit is a percentage of that. So there's every incentive to do what their own whistleblowers have now reported -- abandoning $85,000 trucks with a flat tire, telling high-paid workers to bill for 12-hour days seven days a week when they're mostly sitting around doing nothing because "don't worry, the government will pay for everything" attitude.
It's a crime. It's corporate profiteering -- and in every other war, it was illegal. This time, the profiteers are in power. (Also in every other war, taxes were raised to pay for it -- this time, taxes for the rich are being dramatically reduced at the same time -- and we wonder why the economy is still slumping for the rest of us??)

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Washington, D.C.: Come on, "HANDOVER"? Look at the facts:
1. The majority of active/opposed domestic counterinsurgency within Iraq will still be undertaken by U.S. forces (OK, technically "Coalition," but in terms of Troop Commands, it's over 98 percent U.S.)
2. The CPA management will still remain in-country, doing jobs little different than from before the "handover"
3. The new Government is not creditworthy, and will be operating effectively at the 100 percent expense of the U.S. -- for the foreseeable future
4. The new "handover" government is not recognized by most countries which recognize the U.S. government. It isn't even going to be recognized by many Islamic governments
5. The process of establishing the overwhelming majority of state-controlled forces (national police, army, border police, and Baghdadi metro police are the four key forces) is numerically less than 20 percent complete
There is no "handover." This is entirely a fraud designed to lull lazy American voters into believing that Bush is somehow doing everything he can to exit, when in fact this is all probably a charade.

Phyllis Bennis: You've got all the facts right. This is exactly what the peace movement needs to be hammering on -- the war was based on lies, has failed to do what they claimed it would accomplish, and has cost way too much in lives, money, the environment and more.
Bravo.

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Geneva, NY: Ms Bennis,
after the destruction of the Twin Towers do you you really think that ANY cost (human, finacial, political or whatever) could be too high for the effort to curb terrorism by bringing democracy to Iraq and the rest of the Middle East?

Phyllis Bennis: I wish I could answer your question from the vantage point of weighing whether these terrible costs (almost four times as many Iraqi civilians have been killed in this war than died on September 11th) was worth the price of democracy in the Middle East and freedom from terrorism.
But that's not the comparison -- we're weighting this terribly high price in lives for a FAILED policy. We are NOT safer -- the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies gave a two-word answer to the question of what is the impact of the Iraq war on al-Qaeda: "accelerated recruitment" they said. Iraqis are NOT free -- no one is free under foreign occupation (declared or otherwise), and now the new interim government is already moving towards martial law. The Middle East is NOT democratic -- just look at the crack-downs in all of the countries ruled by allies of Washington -- mostly absolute monarchies or military dictatorships like Pakistan -- on all opponents of government policy. This is not anyone's definition of democracy.
At the end of the day, it isn't simply semantics when we say that Bush lied when he claimed a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda and September 11 -- like his Cincinnati speech in October 2002 when he said Iraq had trained al-Qaeda in poison gases, bombs and chemical weapons.

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Parkville, Md.: How many lives could have been saved world-wide had the U.S. devoted $150,000,000.00 to humanitarian projects (i.e. AIDS medicines, water purification, hospital construction etc.) instead of the Iraq war? Has anyone run such a calculation?

Phyllis Bennis: Great question (I would have planted it if you didn't write in...) -- our report "Paying the Price: The Mounting Cost of the Iraq War" documents a bunch of global examples of how that $151 billion could be spent.
Here's one:
$151 billion could pay for
Feeding half the hungry people in the world for two years AND
AIDS drugs and a comprehensive global AIDS program for two years AND
Clean water and sanitation for the entire developing world for two years AND
Childhood immunizations for all children in the developing world for two years.

Instead we went to war.

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Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Dear Ms. Bennis,

First I would like to congratulate you on your book, "Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis". It was extremely useful in helping me understand the historical context surrounding U.S. policy in the Middle East. It provided a very obvious answer to the question "why do they hate us?", and unlike what the Bush administration seems to be intent on telling us, it has nothing to do with them hating freedom.

On the issue of "the cost of the war", I can't help but fear that you could write a sequel to "Before and After" that would provide more reasons for "why they hate us". I think that ultimately, this war has provided more reasons to hate U.S. mismanagement of its foreign policy, and the effects of this mismanagement on innocent civilians in other countries.

Mass graves in Iraq occurred as a result of:

-the Reagan administration turning a blind eye to the use by Saddam of WMD (because he was a useful ally against Iran), do people remember that Reagan threatened to veto the "Prevention of Genocidee Act", leading to its death in Congress; or
-the failure by Bush Sr. to live up to his commitment to help insurgents against Saddam after Gulf War I, leading to the crushing of the Shiite rebellions and the torture and murder of hundreds of thousands, or
- the death of hundreds of thousand of children from malnutrition and preventable disease as a result of U.S. imposed economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, despite admonitions from UNICEF , -do people remember Madeleine Albright on national T.V. saying "we think the price is worth it"?; or
- the tens of thousands who died as a result of Gulf War II.

It seems that the U.S. develops its Iraq policies in a way that maximizes hatred against America. The cost of the most recent war will be great, I fear.

Phyllis Bennis: You raise vitally important and sobering questions. We in the U.S. tend to have a terribly short-term memory. We forget that Saddam Hussein was an ally of the U.S. (Washington even allowed a U.S. company to send seed stock for biological weapons, including anthrax, e-coli, botulism and more, to Iraq throughout the 1980s.) The question "why do they hate us" is at once a mis-reading of what "they" are actually saying (not to speak of the problem of identifying the rest of the world simply as "they" -- when it's really "us" and our policies who are the problem! -- and a beginning search for painful answers.
We have to take responsibility for the policies of our government -- as difficult as it is to influence and change those policies, we do still live in a relatively open democratic system. And when our officials brag about that system around the world, that the U.s. is the biggest, the best, the whatever democracy, it shouldn't surprise us that other people hold us, the American people, accountable for what our government does. They believe, not surprisingly, that if we WANTED to change the government policy, we would -- and that if we don't, it must be because we don't want to.
That's a big job for those of us committed to challenging this war and the drive towards empire of which it is a part.

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Arlington, Va.: Thanks for taking questions. With the Army announcing they will tap into a few thousand IRR, it appears they are struggling to keep up with the worsening security situation. How exhausted are the troops currently in Iraq? How real are anecdotal reports of substantial attrition?

Phyllis Bennis: U.S. troops are paying a huge price for this war. In lives lost, in huge numbers with grievous wounds and life-long disabilities, its destruction of family lives and careers...
The percentage of reservists serving in Iraq now is higher than in any other war (one-third) -- and the Pentagon is now preventing people who's contracts are up from actually leaving.
While today's troops are not really volunteers -- it's a poverty draft in operation, when the only way so many people can afford a college education or to find a job is to go into the military, that's a draft, not a voluntary institution. But there is a serious risk that a legal draft will be imposed on top of that if this war continues. The troops are stretched very thin (imagine pulling out 3,000 troops from South Korea to send them to Iraq within a week of North Korea's new nuclear posturings!) and the price they are paying is going to rise even further. You might want to check out Foreign Policy in Focus's report on the impact of the Iraq war on veterans -- documenting serious deterioration in veterans care, benefits, etc. from this administration that claims to "put the troops first". (www.fpif.org)

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Anonymous: Ms Bennis:

Bremer's farewell letter to members of the CPA consisted
of phrases of appreciation, sacrifice, reconstruction,
overthrowing tyranny, and contributions.

There is no mentioning of the sacrifices, contributions, etc
made by Americans at home and in the armed forces.

The Iraq invasion was to suppose make the USA more
secure. But this thesis is absent in Bremer's lettter.

Did the American tax payer just get ripped off?

Phyllis Bennis: The American taxpayers have been ripped off terribly -- in line after the people of Iraq and the U.S. troops forced to fight this war. The deficit is skyrocketing and will affect the next several generawtions of Americans.
Along with the problem of being based on lies (WMDs, links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, uranium yellowcake, etc.) and the undermining of the UN, this war has failed in all its ostensible purposes: Americans are NOT safer -- Iraq has become what it never was before, a center for gathering of international terrorists, and the State Department's own "Patterns of Global Terrorism" documents (after correcting a false version they probably hoped they would get away with) a significant increase in terrorist attacks and deaths.
Iraqis are not safer, and are not free -- girls and women especially are at risk, 30% fewer children are in school, unemployment is still hovering around 50%, and their country is still occupied by 140,000 U.S. and 20,000 more international troops and 20,000 unaccountable private military contractors.
We got had.
They lied. And they failed.

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Lansing, MI: Ms. Bennis, given your findings, where do we go from here? What actions need to be taken to get on the right path, so to speak.

Phyllis Bennis: Yours is a good question to finish with. What should be done now? First thing -- we must do what Bush-Blair-Bremer claimed we did yesterday: end the occupation.
But we must do it for real, not on paper. That means ending the U.S. occupation by bringing home the U.S. troops. Then we can talk about how the international community, led by the United Nations but with the involvement of the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other regional organizations, can take the lead in providing peacekeeping, elections, reconstruction and other kinds of assistance.
For us in the U.S., our first job must be to hold our government accountable to what 55% of Iraqis say -- they will feel safer when all U.s. troops are gone. And what now a majority of Americans say as well -- this war was a mistake, and not worth it.
We need a new approach -- starting with ending the occupation. That will allow a significant reduction in the level of violence, which is overwhelmingly aimed AT the U.S. occupation, even if the immediate targets are Iraqis viewed as collaborating with that occupation. We can't pretend that an appointed group of former Baathist leaders, former CIA and MI6 assets, exiles who spent the terrible years living outside the country often in the pay of U.S. government agencies, and a few well-meaning technocrats, somehow can represent even for a short time, the Iraqi people -- while the real power still resides with the new U.S. pro-consul (now ambassador John Negroponte) and the 140,000 U.s. troops.
We have to bring the troops home.
Now.
Thanks for your question.

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Cleveland, OH: Ms. Bennis, Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 last night and left the theater depressed that half of Americans still support George W. Bush and his failed policies. My question is as follows, the administration has said this movie is completely false, what parts of the movie are false? I can't see how the administration can deny the close relationship between the Bush family and associates with the Saudi rich, including the Bin Laden Family. We did let his family fly out after 9/11, we were led to war on the belief that we would easily be able to find WMD's, he did win the election based on one state where his brother was governor and the head of the state supreme court was one of his biggest supporters. Not to mention the dozens of other facts the movie brought up. What ideas presented in the movie is the Bush Administration saying are "false"?

Phyllis Bennis: they said that before they saw it!

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Phyllis Bennis: Thanks everyone for sending such interesting and provocative (and sometimes difficult!) questions. The false claims about yesterday's so-called "transfer of sovereignty" should keep in all of our minds the enormous costs of this war: costs in lives, money, the environment, human rights, and more... and the failed policies on which it is based. When Bremer left "with his tail between his legs," as one occupation official put it, it was in recognition of that failure. To begin to rebuild a shattered Iraq, and try and transform the role of the U.S. in the world, we have to start by REALLY ending the occupation: not by photo-ops, but by bringing the troops home. Phyllis Bennis

www.ips-dc.org

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