Iraq War Soldiers or Corrupt Corporations – Who Deserves Your Money?
The fact that nobody is talking about all the money being used to bailout XYZ corporations here in the states vs. getting us out of Iraq is just mind-numbing!
OpenCRS lays out the numbers for us:
Congress has approved a total of about $864 billion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11 attacks:
- Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) – Afghanistan and other counter terror operations,
- Operation Noble Eagle (ONE) – providing enhanced security at military bases, and
- Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
Of that total, CRS estimates that:
- Iraq will receive about $657 billion (76%),
- OEF about $173 billion (20%), and
- enhanced base security about $28 billion (3%),
- with about $5 billion that CRS cannot allocate (1%).
About 94% of the funds are for DOD, 6% for foreign aid programs and embassy operations, and less than 1% for medical care for veterans. As of July 2008, DOD’s monthly obligations for contracts and pay averaged about $12.3 billion, including $9.9 billion for Iraq, and $2.4 billion for Afghanistan.
In an August 2008 update, the Congressional Budget Office projected that additional war costs could range from:
- $440 billion for the next ten years, if troop levels fell to 30,000 by 2010, or
- $865 billion, if troop levels fell to 75,000 by about 2013.
Under these CBO projections, funding for Iraq, Afghanistan and the GWOT could total about $1.3 trillion or about $1.7 trillion for FY2001-FY2018.
So, you can compare wars and their costs against GDP if you want to, but I don’t see what that even matters! Who cares? The point is, Osama bin Laden is laughing in his cave, grave, or wherever the hell he is, because he’s accomplished his task – bringing our financial system to it’s knees – and that’s exactly where we’re at right now.
