# Why did the Iraq war cost $200 billion **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 22, 2004, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370 "2004-07-22T16:56:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/1 "2004-07-22T16:56:34Z")
Exactly what caused it to cost this much. I figure its not the soldiers pay because 150k soldiers is going to run about 6 billion tops (assuming a generic 40k to pay, house and feed each soldier) a year. I thought we already owned all the military equiptment we used including the transports we used to transfer it to iraq. Where did most of the costs come from. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/2 "2004-07-22T17:06:49Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > Exactly what caused it to cost this much. I figure its not the soldiers pay because 150k soldiers is going to run about 6 billion tops (assuming a generic 40k to pay, house and feed each soldier) a year. I thought we already owned all the military equiptment we used including the transports we used to transfer it to iraq. Where did most of the costs come from. Well, some of the money is going to contractors, whose staff cost a lot more to pay than regular soldiers, and some would be going on equipment that gets used up in Iraq (e.g. bullets and bombs). ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/3 "2004-07-22T17:19:56Z")
Bullets and bombs do eat up a lot of money. Consider also that you have to provide three meals a day for those 150,000 soldiers, medical supplies, massive amounts of fuel for everything from tanks to generators to airplanes and helicopters, huge amounts of steel and concrete for barriers, tens of thousands of tents and and other temporary housing, extra flak jackets and armor, millions of spare parts for tens of thousands of vehicles and aircraft and ships of all sorts, etc, etc, etc. Waging a war requires a whole lot of crap. ---
**Author:** ![Thaumaturge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@Thaumaturge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaumaturge)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/4 "2004-07-22T17:28:55Z")
Also there are contractors over there making 10000 a month and more to do the same job as the army for more pay. War is big business. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/5 "2004-07-22T17:43:03Z")
Well, the war in Iraq was has not cost $200 billion. Congress has appropriated $100.1 billion for military operations for Iraq so far, plus another $25 billion that will be approved this week. (Part of the confusaion arises in that the $87 billion funding bill passed last fall is often incorrectly cited as being for Iraq, when it was actually for Iraq, Afghanistan, and other military operations, as well as reconstruction funding.) There are a number of reasons that the operations cost so much. Pay is only an issue for reservists (active military get paid whether they are in Iraq or in Michigan), but there’s an awful lot of reservists in Iraq, and an awful lot of health care expenses, too. Flying supplies in and out costs a terrible amount of money, and it cost a ton (can’t find right at the moment) to move to many troops into the theater in the first place, even with prepositioned equipment. Fuel, ammunition, and other expendables cost a lot, because we go through a lot of them. There is also a cost that has not yet been addressed that is going to be very, very expensive: resetting the force, that is, getting them back home and fixing their equipment. [Here](http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5587&sequence=0) is a prospective analysis of the cost of the war that has been reasonably accurate, given the extreme uncertainties when it was written. It goes into much more detail than I did, and it is readable. There has also been just over $24 billion dedicated for reconstruction. Of the $18.4 billion of these funds approved last fall, less than $400 million has actually been spent. ---
**Author:** ![Hiding\_Wasp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5e925/32.png) [@Hiding\_Wasp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiding_Wasp)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/6 "2004-07-22T19:45:48Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > Exactly what caused it to cost this much. I figure its not the soldiers pay because 150k soldiers is going to run about 6 billion tops (assuming a generic 40k to pay, house and feed each soldier) a year. I thought we already owned all the military equiptment we used including the transports we used to transfer it to iraq. Where did most of the costs come from. I think that most of the costs are coming from the extraction of oil in Iraq. It is also well known that Halliburton isn’t delivering the food to the troops like it is getting paid for. The one thing that surprised me the most though is that Bush is spending 1 million dollars building a Suddam Hussein museum. Who wants to go see that. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/7 "2004-07-22T19:56:54Z")
> [@Hiding Wasp](#): > > The one thing that surprised me the most though is that Bush is spending 1 million dollars building a Suddam Hussein museum. Who wants to go see that. Can I get a cite on this? ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/8 "2004-07-22T20:05:06Z")
From Michael Moore’s **Fahrenheit 9/11:** DR. SAM KUBBA: I’ve been getting complaints from Iraqi firms and from American firms, uh, that the lack of transparency, the corruption… I think the profits that American companies are making, the major, the main companies, uh, are so overwhelming. I mean, like when **you have a line item for a million dollars** and you **subcontract it out for fifty, or sixty, or seventy thousand dollars, that’s a huge profit.** And it’s the American taxpayer that’s gonna pay for that. And: SOLDIER: It’s no secret, I mean, I make anywhere’s, I don’t know, between two and three thousand a month. A Halliburton employee out here drivin’ a bus can make all between **eight and ten thousand a month.** Explain that one to me. For forty hours a week… driving the same two-and-a-half mile route. Go figure. Where do you, where’s the justification in that? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/9 "2004-07-22T21:02:33Z")
From [Senator Richard Durbin](http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/press_releases/2004/PR02690.halliburton061704.pf.html): > [@](#): > > “The reports of fraudulent and atrocious behavior on the part of Halliburton and its subsidiaries are stunning – driving empty trucks back and forth while billing the federal government for each trip; charging the taxpayers for 240,000 cases of soda instead of the 240,000 cans they actually delivered; abandoning $85,000 vehicles by the side of the road when they got flat tires rather than making repairs because each truck was just another cost-plus item on a federal contract,” said Durbin. “When you consider the fact that we have 138,000 of our finest men and women risking their lives in Iraq, how can we possibly turn our backs on this type of outrageous profiteering? Why would Congress or the Administration even hesitate about getting to the bottom of a situation that may have cost the taxpayers millions so far and may cost us more in the future?” In the same press release: > [@](#): > > Another contract with La Nouvelle for laundry services had a fixed price of between $1 million and $1.2 million per month. Because so little laundry was being done, Halliburton was paying approximately $100 per 15-pound bag of laundry. Under a separate subcontract with the same company, Halliburton was paying on $28 per bag. When a whistleblower brought this to her superiors’ attention and recommended renegotiating the million dollar contract, she was told to discontinue her analysis and cease her attempts to fix the problem. ---
**Author:** ![klasy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@klasy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/klasy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/10 "2004-07-22T21:20:02Z")
> [@Thaumaturge](#): > > Also there are contractors over there making 10000 a month and more to do the same job as the army for more pay. War is big business. $10,000 / mo is chicken feed. I have a friend that just went there as a contractor for $1000 a DAY. 4 mos work - $120k approx. A relative works in an overseas embassy and he has lost staff going to Iraq that makes MORE than $1000 a day. They make in Iraq what they earn in a yr in 4 mos time where they are stationed now. ---
**Author:** ![Thaumaturge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@Thaumaturge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaumaturge)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/11 "2004-07-22T22:02:55Z")
Wow…talk about inflation. I was using the Doha base guards in Kuwait for my example. They are civilian contractors, starting at 60000 year year, tax free, with regular raises up to 120000 a year. Why the army can’t use troops for this job is beyond me, but I think most of humanity is beyond me. The disgusting excesses of Haliburton are just another example. The money could be better spent. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2004, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/12 "2004-07-22T23:00:44Z")
> [@Hiding Wasp](#): > > I think that most of the costs are coming from the extraction of oil in Iraq. Well, I’d like a cite for that, because I don’t find it believable. The total net revenue for **all** the OPEC countries last year was just under $300 billion. So how could Iraq pay the $200 billion cost of this war? Iraq’s oil revenue last year was $9.6 billion. So even if they used 100% of it to pay for the war, it would take about 21 years to do so. (Assuming that their government could send all their oil money off to America to pay for the war, with none of it used to rebuild the country, and keep getting reelected for 21 years.) Iraq’s highest production ever (in the years just before the invasion of Kuwait) was about double that, around $18-$20 billion. So if they could get back to that level (and assuming there was no sabatoge of the oilfields or pipelines), they could pay for the war in 10-11 years. Some experts claim that if Iraq installed the latest technology and went all out to pump as much oil as fast as possible, that could be increased 2.5 to 3 times, up to $45-$60 billion. So they could pay the war cost in 4-5 years. (Assuming they didn’t use any of this money to pay for “installing the latest technology” and assuming that this glut of oil doesn’t cause the price to go down. These are questionable assumptions, I think) I find it highly unlikely that Iraq will be able to pay for this war using its’ oil. Above figures are from the US Dept. of Energy, from [here](http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/opecrev.html) and Congressional Research Service [here](http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RS21626.pdf.). ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/13 "2004-07-23T00:39:20Z")
> [@Hiding Wasp](#): > > I think that most of the costs are coming from the extraction of oil in Iraq. It is also well known that Halliburton isn’t delivering the food to the troops like it is getting paid for. The one thing that surprised me the most though is that Bush is spending 1 million dollars building a Suddam Hussein museum. Who wants to go see that. “Most of the costs?” Ha! There is indeed a lot of money coming out of the ground – about $8 billion so far in 2004 – but the bulk of this money is being used to pay the operating expenses of the Iraqi government, and so a lesser extent, for reconstruction projects. And yes, it is true that US reconstruction money was requested to build a couple museums. The White House asked for $1 million for a “Memory Foundation,” to compile documents related to Saddam’s atrocities. In a supreme bit of irony, the White House also asked for: “Abu Gharaib Memorial: We are working to establish a memorial and museum at Abu Gharaib with local Iraqi NGO participation. Desire to put out an RFP 9/03. Anticipated cost of memorial: $0.5 million.” Well, how about that? :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/14 "2004-07-23T02:34:21Z")
**rjung** wrote > [@](#): > > From Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 HAHAHAHA That’s a good one. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lodoen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b3f665/32.png) [@Jeff\_Lodoen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lodoen)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/15 "2004-07-23T02:37:08Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > From Michael Moore’s **Fahrenheit 9/11:** > > SOLDIER: It’s no secret, I mean, I make anywhere’s, I don’t know, between two and three thousand a month. A Halliburton employee out here drivin’ a bus can make all between **eight and ten thousand a month.** Explain that one to me. For forty hours a week… driving the same two-and-a-half mile route. Go figure. Where do you, where’s the justification in that? We need both soldiers and drivers? Would he rather more reservists were called up to drive trucks? ---
**Author:** ![Thaumaturge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@Thaumaturge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaumaturge)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/16 "2004-07-23T03:01:10Z")
No…I think he would rather have equal pay for equal work. Since his salary is not likely to be bumped up, the contractor truck driver probably needs a pay-cut. Obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lodoen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b3f665/32.png) [@Jeff\_Lodoen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lodoen)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/17 "2004-07-23T03:32:18Z")
> [@Thaumaturge](#): > > No…I think he would rather have equal pay for equal work. Since his salary is not likely to be bumped up, the contractor truck driver probably needs a pay-cut. Obvious. But no civilian will do it for that pay. Call up the reserves… No two ways about it: military service is a sacrifice. ---
**Author:** ![Thaumaturge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@Thaumaturge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thaumaturge)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/18 "2004-07-23T03:41:57Z")
Yep. Well no _American_ citizen would do it for that kind of pay. But last I heard, there were millions of unemployed Iraqis who would happily do so, for far less pay. I’m sure they’d be happy to make similar pay to the soldiers. There is no need to have these contractors there, just beurocratic pork nonsense. It just kind of stinks when they rub it in your face like that, which is what I think the soldier’s point was. Bad enough you are there risking your life for no good reason, but then they have to go and hire someone else to do the same thing for more pay and fewer hours, and its got to sting. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2004, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-iraq-war-cost-200-billion/256370/19 "2004-07-23T04:06:21Z")
As well, the practices of civilian trucking contracters have [raised some eyebrows](http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=696). > [@](#): > > About 12 truckers have accused KBR of billing the Pentagon for unnecessary work. KBR, however, described the empty truck practice as “normal” while Army officials offered the pretext that larger convoys may provide better security. During the peak months, as many as a third of all truck deliveries, amongst mostly 30-truck convoys, were reportedly empty. I’m not sure that the use of the word, ‘pretext’ is _entirely_ justified, there, because I’m not a logistics expert. I have a hard time getting my head around how drivers are valuated against cargoes, though. > [@Jeff](#): > > But no civilian will do it for that pay. Call up the reserves… Which goes some way toward answering the OP’s question. Any administration waging a war has to balance the political costs of taxing the enlisted and reservists with contracting the work out and taxing the general population. And that’s a bit of a no-brainer, really. Yanking reservists out of their routines is going to be unpopular with a lot of people – and for most people, the cost of defense contracts in terms of their tax dollars is pretty abstract – and have the advantage of being viewed as a concrete economic benefit by some people. > [@Thaumaturge](#): > > Well no _American_ citizen would do it for that kind of pay. But last I heard, there were millions of unemployed Iraqis who would happily do so, for far less pay. There’s no incentive for KBR to employ Iraqis, though. The additional security concerns would be considerable, of course, and you can be relatively sure that American citizens are going to be on your side. Apart from that, their contract is on a “cost-plus” basis, which means that their operational costs are passed on directly to Uncle Sam. So why be penurious? (Of course, war materiel ain’t exactly getting cheaper, either.)