The Bush Administration said in 2003 that the Iraq war would cost about $50 billion. Five years later, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent -- about $12 billion every month. Nobel winning Economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda Bilmes say that even those estimates don't take in to account the ongoing costs of the war, including money to help veterans in the future and to rebuild the military.
Stiglitz and Bilmes are out with a new book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict," which they spoke about recently at the Commonwealth Club of California. That speech is featured on Word for Word.
During the conversation, Stiglitz offered a question for the country to consider:
"Is it worth the $900 billion it will cost us to stay another three years, another $1.2 trillion dollars if we we stay another four years? This is the kind of analysis that economists use all the time - marginal analysis - what is the benefit and what is the cost, and we ought not to shirk away from doing this hard kind of analysis that was not done when we went into the war in the first place."
What do you think of their math? Does considering what the war actually costs shape your ideas about the war? What is your cost/benefit analysis? Should we even be concerned with whether or not we can afford to fight the war in Iraq?
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Larissa Anderson
Producer
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Comments: 19
The Republicans need to go!
"What do you think of their math?
Stiglitz is well-known in the economics community as someone who factors in opportunity cost and unearned interest. These are two very dubious practices that no accountant would ever attempt, unless he wanted to get audited by the IRS. Their math is highly questionable.
Does considering what the war actually costs shape your ideas about the war?
As a Conservative, yes. But cost is just one measure.
What is your cost/benefit analysis?
Current account dollars spent + invoices on payments yet to be made + Iraqi lives lost + American/coalition lives lost....................balanced against positive gains made.
Should we even be concerned with whether or not we can afford to fight the war in Iraq?"
Of course.
But it is benefiting the industrial establishment that supplies the military. Who do you think those trillions of dollars are going to? Those people are very happy to have the war go on.
The VAST majority of the money goes to paying the soldiers. Labor is the #1 cost in all wars...............and that means soldiers.
But once Mr and Mrs Clinton or Obama are in office, they will be all for the war. Because they see us winning and will want to take credit for winning.
So, if we were to back out of the war next week, we'd spend all that money on good liberal things like universal health care and more government social programs?
How about stopping the war and not spending any new money on social programs! OMG, we might not run a deficit!
What happens if we retreat? Won't that just inspire Radical Islam even more? We've just rewarded them. You reward bad behavior, you will get more?
Does the political left really want to win this war? Does the political left want to win this war if a Democrat is president? Is it a matter of whose war it is and who could claim victory?
Radical Islam will just go away right? Give appeasement a chance? right?
Out troops are doing a wonderful job, BUT that's not the point. They are fighting a war that had no justification to be started. Bush, Cheney and the Republicans (and Hillary) got us into the worst possible mess we could ever dream of being in! The US' image in the world has dropped significantly because of this war, and it will cost us $3 TRILLION (about $7,000 PER PERSON)! I don't know about you, but I certainly could have some of that.
Sure, there are lots of bad places and people in the world; are we going to invade them all? Of course not! We blew it on this one, by listening to these people; there is NO good way out of this!
Tom, The middle East has always been ruled by tribal groups and brokering short-term peace by alining behind a strong leader (who rules with a government of family and loyal friends).
Democracy is a wonderful alternative that gives voice to the weak majority in Iraq, and peace with the change of leadership.
Reasons for remaining in Irag: economic (we still need oil), limiting nuclear weapons, and diverting risks of world war(how would the countries aline themselves if war continued. Latin American countries would be split, world powers; just imagine that scenario.
Getting thicker
George, true, "a billion here....." does cost a lot of dollars. I also agree that there is a violent undercurrent in the Muslim societies: Sadi Arab, Iranian, Iraqui, Egypt, Assyria, and the list goes on. These countries are not without diversity in religion and education--all the minorities would be in danger of a violent few with a silent majority intimadated by fear. We all can guess what we would witness in Israel.
The world would not be able to pretend that it does not involve all as genocide took place.
The costs--horrific!