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The Cost of a Blank Check for War:
Disastrous for U.S. Communities, Devastating to Iraq
U.S. taxpayers have spent more than
$1 trillion to fund the first four years of the war and occupation in Iraq. Additional costs are already incurred but not
yet paid for, such as interest on the war debt, caring for wounded veterans, and replenishing military equipment. Future
generations will foot the bill for these deferred costs, as well as the likely cost of increased oil prices, interest rates,
and other macro-economic costs. Only 40% of the overall costs of the conflict in Iraq are reflected in the supplemental
appropriations measures passed by Congress to date. Every day that the U.S. continues to occupy Iraq with no plans
for exit adds $720 million to the cost of this war.
While refusing to establish plans or timelines for eventual
withdrawal of U.S. military presence from Iraq, the Administration has requested approximately $150 billion for operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming fiscal year, and officials have said they may ask for an additional $50 billion to cover
the cost of the continuing troop surge. The time is long overdue for Congress to stop signing over blank checks for
endless occupation.
A clear message that the U.S. intends to withdraw all troops and bases from Iraq is essential
to resolving the many layers of conflict that exist in Iraq today. While U.S. leaders and media have interpreted current
violence in Iraq as rooted in sectarian conflict, facts on the ground indicate that the conflict is fundamentally political
rather than religious: Separatists who wish to see Iraq divided into three areas along sectarian lines are clashing
with groups representing a majority of Iraqis who want their country to remain united, with occupying forces and influences
removed. U.S. leaders and planners have exclusively engaged sectarian separatist groups as partners to date. In
this landscape the U.S. occupation is not a “finger in the dike” preventing a full-force sectarian bloodbath;
on the contrary, the foreign occupation of Iraq is the source of the flood itself, directly fueling terrible violence in Iraq
by supporting the agenda of a political minority who want U.S. troops to remain.
With each dollar spent maintaining
an open-ended U.S. occupation of Iraq, other unrecognized costs are also mounting far beyond the direct budgetary impact.
The U.S. is paying a price in deteriorating investment in human needs domestically and further erosion of global goodwill.
Iraqis are suffering the devastating cost of tremendous violence, displacement, and insecurity with no end in sight.
The world as a whole is paying a cost to future peace and stability as international laws are blithely disregarded and political
solutions are ignored in favor of military force. Every person, family, and community affected by the toll on human
lives and livelihood brought by this war know the deepest cost, with impacts that will be felt long after the last U.S. and
Iraqi deaths and injuries have occurred.
Continued signals that the U.S. intends to stay indefinitely will exact
a tremendous cost to the possibilities for eventual peace in Iraq and the broader region. Every blank check issued by
Congress to keep troops in Iraq affirms the open-ended U.S. investment in occupation over reconciliation, destroys options
for peace building within Iraq, and closes doors to a negotiated cease fire and orderly exit for U.S. troops.
The Debilitating Cost of War to U.S. Communities
While tax dollars were poured into the first four years of the
war, vital services and infrastructure at home have suffered the effects of a dwindling drip of federal funding. Soaring
Pentagon expenditures and “supplemental” war funding of hundreds of billions each year have emptied U.S. coffers
and doubled the national debt, paving the way for an assault on human services in the name of fiscal “restraint.”
Between 2002 and 2006, dozens of federal programs have been cut, including Head Start, the Community Food and Nutrition program,
youth job training, affordable housing, and maternal and child health programs. The official U.S. poverty rate grew from 34.6
to 37 million between 2002 and 2005; and1.5 million people joined the ranks of those living without health insurance. For
$720 million – the cost of one day of occupation of Iraq – the U.S. could provide over 400,000 children with health
care, or over a million children with free school lunches for a year.
The Grave Cost of War to U.S. Troops and Their Families
Iraq veterans, active duty soldiers,
and military families have plead for U.S. leaders to truly support the troops by bringing them home and providing medical
and psychological support for their return to civilian life. Instead, the military is being exhausted by repeated deployments,
involuntary extensions, and activations of the Reserve and National Guard. Funding for open-ended occupation of Iraq is wreaking
havoc on the lives of service members and their families, and unnecessarily risking more casualties by missing a critical
chance to negotiate cease fire agreements with parties to the conflict through clear declaration of intent to withdraw occupation
forces.
The Catastrophic Cost of War and Occupation to Iraqi Lives and Future Prospects
The loss of
life caused by war and occupation in Iraq has been staggering. It is estimated that as many as 1.2 million Iraqis have
died since the U.S. invasion in 2003. The country has been transformed as conflicts fueled by occupation strategies
have caused 4.2 million Iraqis to flee their homes – more than two million now living as refugees outside Iraq –
with profound long-term implications for the region and the nation’s future. Access to basic services, clean water,
and electricity has remained elusive for over four years as a result of the conflict, and unemployment remains epidemic.
Meanwhile the U.S. has sent an unprecedented volume of arms into the midst of this conflict and the broader region, with $19
billion spent to arm the Iraqi police and army and over $60 billion in new weapons and military assistance recently transferred
to Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in the Middle East. This shortsighted approach of arming the region
over addressing the crisis of human need faced in and around Iraq is not in U.S. interests, nor is it an approach sought by
the majority of Iraqis.
Iraqis want their nation back. Groups representing the majority of Iraqi voices
across sectarian and political lines have advanced a range of peace plans which include one common theme: cease fire and safe
passage for withdrawal are offered in exchange for a clear U.S. commitment to fully withdraw all troops and bases. These
proposals do not demand specific timelines, but simply seek a commitment to negotiate terms for turning control of Iraq back
to Iraqis. U.S. failure to respond to such overtures sends a distressing signal: the only messages we respond to are
bombs, and our ultimate intent is long-term military occupation.
Paying Dearly for the Wrong Solutions in Iraq
No U.S. military strategy can
force an effective “win” in Iraq – military occupation is the wrong tool for this challenge. Only
political solutions bringing all Iraqi parties to the conflict together for negotiations to set the terms for Iraq’s
sovereign future will pave the way for peace and restoration of desperately needed basic services, security, and reconciliation
processes in Iraq. Such solutions will become more difficult to build with each passing month the Administration operates
with a blank check for endless military occupation of Iraq. It’s time for Congress to stop signing blank checks
and require the Administration to negotiate terms for a full withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases from Iraq.
"Economic
Costs Of The Iraq War: An Appraisal Three Years After The Beginning Of The Conflict" Linda Bilmes, Kennedy School, Harvard
University and Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor, Columbia University
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