Untitled Document
Untitled Document
 |
Quote |
| |
Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
-- Chief Seattle, 1854
|
Untitled Document
|
Online |
| |
We have 7 guests and 0 members online
Welcome Guest, become a member today.
|
|
|
|
|
The following document is from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/02/28/iraq/main542345.shtml
What's A War Cost These Days?
CBS News - NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2003
The Bush administration is refusing to produce any estimate of the possible cost of war and rebuilding in Iraq, which a series of outside studies have placed at anywhere from $50 billion to more than a trillion dollars.
The White House maintains that any estimate now would be no more than a guess, since the timing and length or war, and the duration and nature of post-war peacekeeping and reconstruction, are unknown.
But some in Congress contend that they must be given some idea what the war will require.
"The bottom line is we need a better and fuller understanding of the financial commitments we are undertaking, and how much of these costs our allies are willing to bear," Rep. Chris Shays, a Connecticut Republican who chairs the House Budget Committee, told a hearing Thursday on the administration's defense budget — which requests no funding for the war or its aftermath.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz countered that, "Such estimates are so dependent on future, unpredictable circumstances as to be of little value."
Wolfowitz's refusal to talk dollars and cents infuriated some Democrats, like Virginia's James Moran, who according to the New York Times said the deputy secretary was "deliberately keeping us in the dark."
In the absence of an official White House estimate, members of Congress must choose from a wide range of outside studies and media reports.
Budget director Mitch Daniels guessed $50 to $60 billion in a newspaper interview this fall. Former White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey put the price tag between $100 billion and $200 billion. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that defense officials were preparing an estimate of $60 billion to $95 billion.
The Congressional Budget Office said in September that a month-long conflict might run $22 billion to $29 billion, but Democrats on the House Budget Committee put it somewhat higher, at $30.6 billion to $48.3 billion.
The reason for the range is the vast number of variables to be considered. Much depends on how long the war would take, which requires guessing how easy it will be for the U.S. to defeat Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Thursday described the possible war's cost as "not knowable."
"We have no idea how long the war will last. We don't know to what extent there may or may not be weapons of mass destruction used," he said. "We don't have any idea whether or not there would be ethnic strife. We don't know exactly how long it would take to find weapons of mass destruction and destroy them — those sites."
It's also unclear how long the U.S. will maintain a presence in post-war Iraq, and how many troops will have to be there. This week, Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki guessed "several hundred thousand" soldiers could be needed, but Rumsfeld predicts far fewer will be required.
Reflecting on those varied possibilities, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Wednesday that the cost will "depend on a number of factors, many of them up to Saddam Hussein and to Saddam Hussein's henchmen."
"If (the henchmen) don't follow their orders from Saddam Hussein, that can lead to one scenario," he said. "And so it is too soon to say with precision how much this war will cost."
After the war, how much will the U.S. spend not just to protect Iraq, but to rebuild it? Will Iraq's oil reserves help cover this cost? That depends on how much of the oil survives the war intact, and on the vagaries of the oil market.
The variation also reflects different ideas of what the war's cost encompasses. Some studies guess only at what the actual deployment will cost the government, while others try to gauge how a potentially long war and a possible oil price spike might affect the overall economy.
For example, at the high end of estimates is a report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which sees a short war going for $99 billion and a long one costing as much as $1.9 trillion, when all the effects of war trickle out over a decade.
But as Wolfowitz reminded Congress, there may be a price tag associated with avoiding conflict.
"The possible cost of war in Iraq should be considered in the context of America's other international undertakings of recent years. We must remember that there is a cost of containment in both dollars as well as risk to our national security," Wolfowitz argued.
He added that the value of defeating Saddam has to be weighed in any discussion of war's cost.
At least to date in its public statements, the White House is not precluding that a cost estimate will emerge at some point.
"There is unquestionably a responsibility on the Executive Branch to provide to the Legislative Branch an estimate about what the war would cost, what the humanitarian operation would cost. And that is a responsibility the administration takes seriously," Fleischer told reporters.
"Because we take it seriously, I'm not in a position to speculate what the number may be," he said.
| FAIR USE NOTICE | This site contains material the use of which has not been authorized by the copyright owner. The material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of philosophical, political, and other issues. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
|
contact | report an error | forum | Frontline's "Long Road to War"
Materials in this section of the site for which original source documentation is specified are owned by their respective copyright holders. All the rest of the contents of this section is maintained by, and © 2003-2004, Brendan Lalor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Terror Level |
| |
 |
|
|
Login |
| |
|
|
|
Newsletter |
| |
You are currently not logged in, but you can still subscribe to our newsletter.
|
|
|
Off the Front Page |
| |
· What is there It Is . org?
(May 16, 2005)
· "A Moment of Silence"
(Apr 06, 2005)
· Principles of Categorization
(Apr 02, 2005)
· The Banality of Evil
(Nov 13, 2004)
· Role of Letter Order in Parsing Language
(Nov 05, 2004)
· How US trained butchers of Timor
(Sep 15, 2004)
· A Note on the Morality of Fictional Wars: Fictum ad Bellum and Fictum in Bello
(Sep 13, 2004)
· Can I Get a Job With a Philosophy Degree?
(Aug 23, 2004)
· Well-Known Philosophy Majors
(Aug 23, 2004)
· THE USES OF PHILOSOPHY
(Aug 23, 2004)
· To Beat the Market: Hire a Philosopher
(Aug 23, 2004)
· How to Get to the Top -- Study Philosophy
(Aug 23, 2004)
· Philosophers Find the Degree Pays Off in Life And in Work
(Aug 23, 2004)
· Alabama Gov. Bob Riley says his religious views influenced his push for a tax increase on the wealthy
(Aug 18, 2004)
· Metaphor, Morality, and Politics, Or Why Conservatives Have Left Liberals In the Dust
(Jul 02, 2004)
· Medicare and Manna from Heaven for Corporations
(May 31, 2004)
· Global Population to Level Off?
(May 27, 2004)
· Bush PR team covers China stamp with 'Made in U.S.A.'
(May 21, 2004)
· Bush praises Sharon's pullout proposal
(May 20, 2004)
· The Roots of Torture
(May 19, 2004)
· Evangelicals Shape U.S. Foreign Policy
(May 13, 2004)
· Brazil's Road to Victory Over U.S. Cotton
(May 12, 2004)
· Those Who Deny the Crimes of the Past
(May 11, 2004)
· Torture as Normalcy: As American as Apple Pie
(May 09, 2004)
· U.S. Suspends Military Aid to Nearly 50 Countries
(May 07, 2004)
· Kerry Won't Stop the War; But Independent Action Can
(May 07, 2004)
· A carnival of unreason: The Anatomy of Fascism
(May 03, 2004)
· Clinton Bombs Sudanese Pharmaceutical Plant
(Apr 28, 2004)
· Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins
(Apr 28, 2004)
· The Dystopic Duo: Sharon & Bush
(Apr 27, 2004)
|
|
|
On this day in history ... |
| |
1670
The Virginia Colony bans the enslavement of Blacks who arrive in the colony as baptized Christians; the ban is widely ignored and eventually repealed in 1682.
1943
Jews at Nazi death camp in Sobibor revolt; over 40 escape.
1970
Angela Davis arrested in N.Y.C. by FBI on false charges of aiding the escape of the Soledad Brothers.
1986
Police arrest 1,200 students occupying the University - Seoul, South Korea.
1987
Costa Rican president Oscar Arias is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Central American conflicts fomented by the Reagan-Bush administration.
2001
An estimated 50,000 rally in London, 50,000 in Berlin, 25,000 in Stuttgart, and additional demonstrations take place in over 100 other cities in 19 countries to protest the US attack of Afghanistan.
|
|
|
