While most of us focus on high gas prices and the latest antics of Charlie Sheen, the War in Afghanistan has already passed the mark for longest American war, and is quickly approaching the 10-year anniversary for American involvement.
Between 2001 and 2010, Congress spent $1.09 trillion dollars [PDF] on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan – much of it through special supplemental bills outside of the normal budget process. And that’s a big part of the record deficits we’re facing now.
But that figure, larger than many of us can even fathom, is just the known, current cost of the two wars. We know how much the guns, the planes and the computers cost.
More important than the financial cost of these wars, and much harder to calculate, are the human costs. Too many of us now know the terms insurgency and IED – because too many of our soldiers have first-hand experience with this new, destructive type of warfare. The young men and women who serve in today’s wars are far too familiar with its signature wounds [PDF]: traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, severe burns, and traumatic amputations. And the cost of bearing these injuries, not to mention the sacrifice of life, is a cost we rarely consider in the budget process in Congress. That has to change.
Since I first came to Congress, I’ve visited many veterans in my district, at their homes, at Walter Reed and at Bethesda Naval. Earlier this week, I stopped at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany on the way back from a Congressional fact-finding trip to Afghanistan. All of them are extraordinary. But many of them are also very young – under the age of 25 – and some of them have seen their lives changed forever by devastating wounds.
These young men and women – boys and girls even – have lost limbs, suffered severe burns or brain injuries and are now experiencing the early effects of PTSD. They’ve spent months in hospitals and in rehabilitative care, and they have a lifetime ahead of them that involves medical bills, special living arrangements and constant professional care. And while the last 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan have given us a long list of figures: more than $1 trillion appropriated, more than 5,800 U.S. service members killed, over 40,000 wounded, and hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, we still don’t have know what these wars will cost our country in the years to come – in veterans’ benefits and care, in compounding deficits, and much more.
That’s why yesterday I introduced the True Cost of War Act [PDF], calling on the President and the Secretaries of Defense, State and Veterans Affairs to provide an accounting for what these wars have cost us so far, and asking them to provide a real picture of what we will need to spend on continuing these missions.
While political talking heads are for calling for job-killing budget cuts and telling us America can’t afford more government spending, they’re ignoring the true cost of these wars and a huge part of what got us in this hole to begin with.
It’s time for an honest discussion about our deficit and our budget – and that begins with an honest calculation of the true cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Our country, and our veterans, deserve it.
My staff will be available for the next 20 minutes or so to answer any questions you might have.