True Costs of the Iraq War

[John Simkin]

Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has just published a book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, on the true cost of the Iraq War. Here are a few of the figures:

$19.3bn = the amount that Halliburton has received in single-source contracts for work in Iraq

$25bn = the annual cost to the US of the rising price of oil as a result of the Iraq War

$1 trillion = the interest America will have to pay by 2017 on the money borrowed to finance the war

$138 = the amount paid by every US household per month for the war

$16bn = monthly cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

$400,000 = average annual pay for a privately contracted security guard in Iraq

$40,000 = average annual pay for a soldier in Iraq

You find an interview with Stiglitz here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/28/iraq.afghanistan

[Jack White]

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." -- Albert Einstein

[Mark Stapleton]

Peter,

Thanks for posting that interview. Stiglitz and Bilmes have some shocking information for Americans. I hope they listen.

Out of all the messy details, the most odious is the massive burden being placed on future generations to foot the cost for many thousands of disabled and injured veterans--due to the fact that medical advancements have caused the wounded to dead ratio to skyrocket. A consequence of a forty year gap between large scale troop deployments, but obviously overlooked by Iraq's sponsors in their haste to get into the trough.