The cost of the Iraq war could top $US 2 trillion after factoring in long-term health care for wounded US veterans, rebuilding a worn-down military and accounting for other unforeseen bills and economic losses, according to a new analysis.
The figure is more than four times what the war was expected to cost taking in this year — about $US 500 billion, according to congressional budget data.
The estimate by Nobel Prize-winning Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes far exceeds projections made by the Bush Administration.
For example, the study attributes a portion of the increase in oil prices to instability in the Middle East caused by the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and sparked a bloody insurgency. It estimates that the shock to the oil industry has already added at least $25 billion to the price tag of the conflict - and so on and so on...
It really is a disaster this war. No one can tell me anymore that anybody gained anything from this. And the long term costs of life and resources probably exceed any price tag even a smart Nobel price winner can ever pin down.
Tuesday, January 10
Hello, can anybody hear me?
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And who is getting the trillion dollar transfer - whose pockets are going to be fat? Weapons manufacturers, pharma/web, petrochemical, financiers and...friends of King George II.
And whose pockets will it come out of? All the taxpayers and working people of American... for say, about 4 generations.
Could have given every Iraqi a car, a house, a job and paid Saddam to go to the moon to live!
Good point Gary!
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