Also see:
AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout Communications •
Go to Original
Wars Cost $15 Billion a Month, GOP Senator Says
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday 27 December 2007
The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
and the worldwide battle against terrorism - nearly $15 billion a month -
came last week from one of the Senate's leading proponents of a continued U.S.
military presence in Iraq.
"This cost of this war is approaching $15 billion a month, with the Army
spending $4.2 billion of that every month," Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska),
the ranking Republican on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a
little-noticed floor speech Dec. 18. His remarks came in support of adding $70
billion to the omnibus fiscal 2008 spending legislation to pay for the Iraq
and Afghanistan conflicts, as well as counterterrorism activities, for the six
months from Oct. 1, 2007, through March 31 of next year.
While most of the public focus has been on the political fight over troop levels,
the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported this month that the Bush administration's
request for the 2008 fiscal year of $189.3 billion for Defense Department operations
in Iraq, Afghanistan and worldwide counterterrorism activities was 20 percent
higher than for fiscal 2007 and 60 percent higher than for fiscal 2006.
Pentagon spokesmen would not comment last week on Stevens's figure but said
their latest estimate for monthly spending for Iraq, Afghanistan and the war
on terrorism was $11.7 billion as of Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2007.
One reason for Stevens's larger cost figure may be that U.S. troop levels in
Iraq peaked at 180,000 in November, which is part of the 2008 fiscal year, and
will fall only slightly in the next three months. In addition, in its December
report, the CRS noted that the Pentagon does not include intelligence operations
and other classified activities in its cost estimates, nor does it tally congressional
add-ons for the National Guard and reserve forces.
"Stevens is being realistic," said Gordon Adams, who served as the
senior national security official at the Office of Management and Budget from
1993 to 1997, in the Clinton administration.
Pointing out that Bush's request comes out to $15.8 billion per month, Adams
said: "Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror are not getting cheaper.
. . . This will go down some, as the surge comes home, but not as much as people
think."
He added: "More and more of these so-called emergency funds are being
used to repair and buy new military hardware," because "the Pentagon
is worried that defense budgets will start to go down next year."
The CRS reports that a good part of the increased spending is not only for
replacing lost equipment but "more often to upgrade and replace 'stressed'
equipment and enhance force protection." It noted that a recent Congressional
Budget Office study "found that more than 40% of the Army's spending for
repair and replacement of war-worn equipment" was "spent to upgrade
systems to increase capability, to buy equipment to eliminate longstanding shortfalls
in inventory" and to convert new combat units to more flexible organizational
structures.
Stevens made it clear that the $70 billion in the omnibus bill for the wars
will cover only costs for the six months ending March 31, when Congress will
again have to wrestle with a supplemental spending bill to pay for the wars.
By then, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan C.
Crocker, the U.S. ambassador, will have presented Congress with their update
on the situation in Iraq.
Last Friday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that he hopes troop levels,
which drive costs, could continue to go down in 2008. But he warned that they
would continue only "if conditions on the ground" permit sustaining
"the gains we have already made."
One indication of how fast costs are rising is that operations and maintenance
costs for all of fiscal 2007 were $72 billion, and the entire fiscal year 2008
request was $81 billion, according to the CRS.
The Pentagon has anticipated rising war costs before. In January, Deputy Defense
Secretary Gordon R. England told a House Budget Committee hearing that, nearly
four years into the war, the Pentagon's war costs were rising because it had
to replace big-ticket items such as helicopters, airplanes and armored vehicles,
which were wearing out or were lost in combat. "We have a backlog and are
seeing an increase," England told the panel.
At that time, 11 months ago, Pentagon spokesmen said the monthly costs of the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007 would be $9.7 billion - $2 billion less
than their most recent estimate.
One relatively new cost is the $300 monthly payments to almost all Iraqis recruited
as part of the "Concerned Local Citizens" (CLC) program, which arms
neighborhood groups to provide local security. The latest quarterly Iraq report
by the Pentagon puts the program total at 69,000 people.
Since more than 80 percent of the CLC participants are Sunni, the Shiite-led
government has hesitated to integrate them into the police force. That means
that the United States will need to continue paying them until the Iraqi government
"assumes full responsibility for the program," according to the Pentagon
report.
Much of the CLC money is coming out of the Commanders Emergency Response Program,
which until now has been used mainly for small local assistance or development
projects, such as school rebuilding, roads or sanitary systems. The omnibus
spending package includes $500 million in these funds.
Another category Stevens identified in the spending bill was $587 million to
reset pre-positioned stocks of military equipment taken from U.S. facilities
around the world to support Iraq and Afghanistan. Replenishing such stocks,
Stevens said, "enhances our nation's ability to respond to contingencies,"
noting that "we have forces in 141 different places."
Some of the bill's spending figures that Stevens described represent what the
administration sought for the full 2008 fiscal year. For example, he listed
"$4.3 billion for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Fund, which
will help our troops detect and defeat the number one killer of our troops in
Iraq." That is only slightly less than the figure the administration sought
for the full year.
Another category that appears to have been fully funded is the military intelligence
program. The administration requested $3.7 billion for the full year, and Stevens
said there is "$3.7 billion to continue to enhance our intelligence activities
in the theater."
-------
Jump to today's Truthout Features:
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on TO may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.
Print This Story
E-mail This Story