Recent figures I’ve heard on the cost of the “war” to date: $200 billion.
Rought guess of population of Iraq: 24 million.
Cost of war per Iraqi, to date: $8,333. Cecil’s estimate of the per-person cost of the Vietnam War was $3,600 per person. Adjusted for inflation that would be, say, $16,000 in today’s money. But then, the cost of Iraq is already up to half the cost of Nam in scarcely 18 months.
Of course, these are all estimates, so no whining on that point, por favor.
[I’ll leave it to someone else to figure out the cost of the war per barrel of oil we expect to get someday.]
No kidding. Wasn’t this one of the biggest mistakes made during the Cold War? You never know where that money is going…and I’d hate to find out years from now that we’ve basically financed the next big attack on ourselves.
Since they’re doing that anyway, wouldn’t it have at least been worth trying the strategy that didn’t require killing thousands and thousands of innocent people?
I mean, it’s not as if the war apparently made them any less jonesing for a scrap. Have you read today’s news?
Bush Unlikely to Fulfill Vow on Deficit, Budget Office Projects September 7, 2004
Stripping out all war costs for the two countries after next year, the Congressional analysts said the federal government would save $536 billion over the next five years. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
As I cipher that, that’s an additional $400bil to add to the iraq bill.
$600bil/24mil= closer to $25k/Iraqi.
Well, ya got a point there. If I recall correctly, one of the past beneficiaries of our largess was a feller named Saddam Hussein.
I have nothing particular in mind (this is one of those “gee whiz, what if” questions that seldom have a real-world answer). But is someone wanted to win my heart and mind, there surely must be a better way than driving tanks across my front yard.
Don’t forget, most of that money is paid to American companies and employees. Sending the money overseas will be far more devastating to the US economy than spending it “in” the US.
A large portion of the Iraq budget has gone to bribes and we have been relatively successful. The issue is the recipients have largely not been the Iraqis.
How do you think we got thousands of men and women to go over there? It wasn’t entirely some patriotic urge or the desire to be shot at. Or the private workers, like truck drivers. There is a risk premium and we have to pay it.
And take a look at the long list of the “coalition of the willing”. About a third of the countries would not have demanded much in the way of bribes, but we did have to expend a lot of dough on map readers to find these countries. Several would have been very difficult to find on maps.