Too_Many_Tools wrote:
I can think of better ways of spending my share of the $2 trillion
dollars.

How about your share?

TMT


Cost of Iraq war could top $2 trillion: study By Jason Szep

The cost of the Iraq war could top $2 trillion, far above the White
House's pre-war projections, when long-term costs such as lifetime
health care for thousands of wounded U.S. soldiers are included, a
study said on Monday.

Yeah, these are the costs of war that a guy who's never seen it close
up just can't comprehend.
Columbia University economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer
Linda Bilmes included in their study disability payments for the 16,000
wounded U.S. soldiers, about 20 percent of whom suffer serious brain or
spinal injuries.

They said U.S. taxpayers will be burdened with costs that linger long
after U.S. troops withdraw.

Yup, we'll be paying for this one for the next 50 years, on several
"fronts". Veteran's disability and treatment, lost productivity of
guys who won't come back to their jobs, and the economic costs.
When you add all this up, $2 trillion is so low as to be laughably
far off. Just the veterans treatment could rack up $2 trillion
over those 50 years. If these guys had stayed stateside in the armed
forces, they'd still need treatment as veterans, but it wouldn't be the
catastrophic costs of the seriously wounded vet, just the normal wear
and tear of aging people.

"Even taking a conservative approach, we have been surprised at how
large they are," said the study, referring to total war costs. "We can
state, with some degree of confidence, that they exceed a trillion
dollars."

Before the invasion, then-White House budget director Mitch Daniels
predicted Iraq would be "an affordable endeavor" and rejected an
estimate by then-White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey of total
Iraq war costs at $100 billion to $200 billion as "very, very high."

These are the most direct, short-term costs, only.
The projection of a total cost of $2 trillion assumes U.S. troops stay
in Iraq until 2010 but with steadily declining numbers each year. They
projected the number of troops there in 2006 at about 136,000.
Currently, the United States has 153,000 troops in Iraq.
Well, reading the news, any estimates based on late last year's
attrition rates start looking very low, compared to what's been
going on the last couple of weeks. It is not looking good at ALL!
Both the deaths of US forces and the deaths of civilians in Iraq
is taking a REALLY OMINOUS trend!

Jon