From a new report: "In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, the war in Iraq alone has already cost more than every past U.S. war but World War II."
The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is an independent, non-partisan policy research institute established to promote innovative thinking and debate about national security strategy and investment options. CSBA’s goal is to enable policymakers to make informed decisions in matters of strategy, security policy, and resource allocation.
From a report by: CSBA:
http://www.csbaonline.org/...
The United States has been at war since the end of 2001. In October of
that year it began sending forces into Afghanistan. In March 2003, the
United States invaded Iraq. Today, US forces remain heavily engaged
in both countries. In the Fall of 2008, there were some 200,000 US
troops in the region, of which about 150,000 were in Iraq and about
35,000 in Afghanistan. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001, the US military has also been engaged in homeland security-
related operations.
To date, some 4,800 US Service members have been killed in the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and about 33,000 wounded. These mili-
tary operations have also incurred substantial financial costs, including
both direct budgetary costs and associated interest payments on the fed-
eral debt. These costs have grown dramatically over the past few years.Since 2001, the US government and the American taxpayer have pro-
vided about $904 billion (unless otherwise noted, all cost and funding
figures cited in this analysis are expressed in 2008 dollars) for military
operations, including $66 billion to cover war-related costs for the first
part of 2009. Moreover, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to be
far from over.A set of illustrative scenarios developed by the Congres-
sional Budget Office (CBO) suggest that the direct budgetary costs of
these military operations could amount to an additional $416–817 bil-
lion through 2018—assuming the number of US troops involved in the
two conflicts is reduced from today’s level of about 200,000 to some
30,000–75,000 over the next several years. This would bring the direct
budgetary costs of these wars to a total of some $1.3–1.7 trillion
How do you feel about the famous "shoe-throwing" incident now? Kind of makes you want to throw a few pairs of your own at the dolt who became president in 2008. Are we getting anything for our $1.7 trillion dollars? The answer is of course is yes! We have gained hundreds of thousands of enemies all over the world because of our senseless, unprovoked act of aggressive militarism. Just yesterday, Cheney stated that he would have invaded Iraq even if the report on WMD's had been different. I do believe that statement alone shows that there was clear intent to invade Iraq from Bush/Cheney's first days in office, just as Richard Clarke stated.
http://abcnews.go.com/...
Keeping in mind the $1.7 trillion estimate of the Iraq war, the $700 billion in unaccounted for bail-outs of the banks and financial sector which really is a by-product of our financial irresponsibility with treasury and trade deficits, our huge amount of debt with China and the two wars. Imagine what "good" we could have done with all that money. Health care, food and shelter for our poor, eduction and new schools for our children and infrastructure repair...we'd still have money left over!
Elections have consequences. Bush was that consequence. This diary only represents the economic disaster that has defined Bush...I'll save the constitutional disaster that has defined 8 years of Bush for another time.