On May 13, 8:08 am, "Robert Westergrom,1900 Harvey rd.,Wilmington,D.E"
yes its still bushs fault, and will be for a long long time:)))
yes it was bushes fault and it still is: The Iraq war says economist
Joseph Stiglitz, is the first U.S. war financed entirely on
credit.:There’s no such thing as a free war Stiglitz said. The U.S.
and the world will be paying the price for decades to come
http://theweek.com/article/index/40617/briefing-the-iraq-money-pit
Briefing: The Iraq money pit
What has all that money bought for the U.S.—and the Iraqis?
By The Week Staff | May 1, 2008
The war in Iraq is costing the U.S. $12 billion a month, and no one
can say when the spending will stop. What has all that money bought
for the U.S.—and the Iraqis?
How much has the war cost so far?
About $600 billion since 2003, and
the total is rising fast. Because of soaring fuel costs and the high
price of repairing or replacing damaged equipment, the U.S. is
spending about $12 billion a month this year, up from $4 billion a
month in 2003. About $1.5 billion of the monthly total covers
reconstruction, and perhaps an additional $4.5 billion flows to
private contractors doing everything from serving food to guarding
diplomats. The remainder covers fuel, ammunition, and equipment, as
well as the cost of paying, feeding, housing, and providing medical
care to more than 150,000 U.S. military personnel. The $600 billion
figure does not include such costly consequences as higher oil prices,
the interest on the billions borrowed to pay for the war (see below),
and the burden of long-term care and benefits for Iraq war veterans.
So what’s a more realistic figure?
Anywhere from $1 trillion to $5
trillion. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently said
that the war’s cost would amount to $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion by
2017. Harvard researcher Linda Bilmes and Nobel Prize–winning
economist Joseph Stiglitz, in their book The $3 Trillion War, say that
the war’s long-term cost will range from $2 trillion to $5 trillion.
Iraq is already the second most expensive war in U.S. history. Only
World War II cost more, about $5 trillion, adjusted for inflation. As
a point of perspective, consider what the $600 billion we’ve spent
already could have purchased, says Bilmes. “The money spent on the war
could have fixed Social Security for 75 years or provided health
insurance to all American children,” she says.
Has the money been
well spent?
In many cases, no. Audits and oversight groups have found
that tens of billions have been squandered in waste, fraud, and
corruption. Contractors hired to rebuild the country’s infrastructure
or provide security have overcharged the U.S. for everything from soft
drinks—$45 a can—to gasoline. Millions of dollars in no-bid
reconstruction contracts were diverted to things such as Super Bowl
tickets, prostitutes, watches, and jewelry. And much of the
reconstruction work has been substandard. The U.S., for example, paid
$72 million to Parsons, a U.S. contractor, to build a police academy
in Baghdad. But the building was so badly put together that raw sewage
seeps from its walls and ceilings. “This became the lens through which
Iraqis now see America—incompetence, profiteering, arrogance,” said
House Democrat Henry Waxman of California, a vocal critic of the war.
Are the Iraqis chipping in for reconstruction?
Barely, and that’s a
sore point with Congress. With oil nearing $120 a barrel, the Iraqi
government is looking at a $70 billion windfall in oil revenues this
year—twice what it expected when it drew up its $48 billion budget for
2008. But instead of financing the reconstruction of Iraq’s decrepit
electrical grid, sewer systems, roads, and public buildings, most of
the money is going unspent. “The Iraqis have translated their oil
revenues into budget surpluses rather than effective services,” said
Missouri Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton. Congress has cut off further
funds for reconstruction and is looking into ways to prod the Iraqi
government into shouldering more of the load.
Why is reconstruction
going so slowly?
In part because it’s hard to work in a combat zone,
where unguarded workers can be killed by snipers and bombs. The
largest share of any reconstruction contract in Iraq goes to security.
But corruption plays a large role, too. The former head of Iraq’s anti-
corruption commission recently told Congress that at least $18 billion
of Iraq’s own funds has been lost to corruption, with much of the
money ending up in the hands of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgent
groups. That total doesn’t include the losses from oil smuggling and
theft. When the U.S. renovated Iraq’s oil pipelines, it failed to
install meters to monitor the flow of oil. So no one can say how much
oil has been siphoned off illegally.
Is life at least better for the
Iraqi people?
By some measures, unquestionably. Recent polls show that
45 percent of Iraqis expect conditions to improve over the next 12
months, up from 29 percent in 2007. Unlike in the Saddam Hussein era,
when political opponents were killed or tortured and only state-
sponsored media were permitted, Iraq now has 268 privately owned
newspapers and 54 commercial TV stations. Thanks to the surge of
28,000 additional U.S. forces and peacekeeping deals with “Sunni
awakening” groups, war-related deaths among Iraqi civilians have
dropped to fewer than 600 a month, compared to almost 1,800 a month in
2006. But more than 60,000 Iraqis have died in the sectarian violence
thus far, and many portions of the country remain dangerous. In
Baghdad, electricity is available less than 12 hours a day, and many
areas have no running water or sewer systems. Unemployment stands at
around 33 percent, and inflation is soaring. About 2 million Iraqis
have fled Iraq, mostly to Syria and Jordan, and many vow not to go
back. Meanwhile, the political impasse between the government and
Sunnis and insurgent Shiite groups keeps the country stuck in a
primitive, largely dysfunctional state. Americans “are the best in
destroying things,” said 26-year-old Zaid Saleem, who mans a stall in
a Baghdad market. “But they are the worst in rebuilding.”
The credit card war
The Iraq war, says economist Joseph Stiglitz, is
“the first U.S. war financed entirely on credit.” When the war
started, the Bush administration said it would cost no more than $60
billion. But the U.S. budget was already in deficit, so the
administration had to borrow money to finance the invasion. About 40
percent of the money was borrowed from China and other international
investors—the first time since the Revolutionary War that foreigners
financed a U.S. war. At the same time, the administration and Congress
lowered taxes instead of raising them, as is customary in wartime. The
Federal Reserve kept interest rates low, which encouraged middle-class
Americans to go on a consumption binge financed by credit cards and
home-equity loans. Today, say Stiglitz and other economists, the bills
for the country’s spending spree are starting to come due, in the form
of higher prices, a weakened dollar, and lower living standards.
“There’s no such thing as a free war,” Stiglitz said. “The U.S.—and
the world—will be paying the price for decades to come.”