War multiplied in 40s, veteran costs, debt, trillions rise

Re-reporting, excerpting, compiling, editing by Carolyn Bennett From “How Iraq and Afghanistan wars are crippling the U.S. economy” by Professor Linda J. Bilmes, co-author of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict

Costs and consequences of wars last centuries

Between 2003 and 2008—before the financial crisis unfolded—the debt rose from $6.4 trillion to $10 trillion, and, at least one-quarter of this increase was directly attributable to the wars, first in Iraq and then in Afghanistan.

Spending has risen to more than $1 trillion in Iraq, not counting the $700 billion consumed each year by the Pentagon budget. Spending in Iraq and Afghanistan comes to more than $3 billion weekly, making the wars a major reason for record-level budget deficits.

Considering the new numbers, we now believe our initial estimate [that the budgetary and economic costs of the war would reach $3 trillion] was far too conservative. The cost of the wars will reach between $4 trillion and $6 trillion.

The legacy of wars spans decades.

History shows that the cost of caring for war veterans typically peaks 40 years after conflict ends. Paying out disability claims to World War I veterans peaked in 1969. Paying out disability claims to World War II veterans peaked in the 1980s. Vietnam War veterans’ benefits have not yet peaked. The six-week Gulf War now costs more than $4 billion a year in veterans’ disability compensation.

The long-term costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will be higher than previous wars because of higher survival rates, greater incidence of PTSD and other mental-health disorders.

Hundreds of thousands of veterans have received treatment in VA medical facilities. Many will require care for the rest of their lives. More than half-a-million people have filed for disability compensation.

The total lifetime cost of providing for veterans [not including materiel replacement] is likely to tally between $600 billion and $900 billion.… These huge numbers do not include the economic costs borne by veterans and their families: diminished quality of life, lost employment, and long-term suffering.

This spending (and the accompanying debt) will one day need to be paid [but] we do not care to connect the dots. Iraq and Afghanistan cast a long shadow — a legacy we will live with for decades.

Source and notes


Writer Linda J. Bilmes is a Harvard Kennedy School of Government professor and co-author of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. Major newspapers, magazines and academic journals have published her articles on financial and budgetary issues.

“How Iraq and Afghanistan wars are crippling the U.S. economy (Linda J. Bilmes, Daily Beast) October 30, 2010, http://stopwar.org.uk/content/view/2129/27/

How many (est.) in two-theater

U.S.-led

WAR DEAD?

Casualty sites reporting November 5, 2010

(accurate totals unknown)

• Anti-war dot com Casualties in Iraq since March 19, 2003

[U.S. war dead since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 199]

Wounded 32,900-100,000

U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000

Suicides estimated: 18 a day

Latest update on this site: October 24, 2010

http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/

• Iraq Body Count (civilian deaths from violence) figures:

98,691 – 107,707

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

• ICasualties figures:

IRAQ: 4,427 U.S., 4,745 Coalition

AFGHANISTAN: 1,378 U.S., 2,203 Coalition

http://icasualties.org/oif/

FOR THIS AND MORE

"Remembrance"

World War II veteran Richard Charlifue, 85, of Aurora, Colorado, remembers “hell on Earth.”

The dead were everywhere their skin rotting, bodies infested with maggots and mosquitoes — I could not believe the stench of human dead.


One day he is standing guard with a fellow soldier. A Japanese soldier appears from the foliage his hands raised in surrender. We had orders to take no prisoners and “My buddy kept saying, ‘shoot him.’ I could not do it.… ‘Discretion is the better part of valor’ — one human being refusing to kill a helpless human being.”


Saipan was such a “beautiful tropical island” but the experience there was “hell on Earth.”

Sources and notes
“Aurora WWII veteran reflects on war, his life after service” (David Pollan), November 8, 2010,
http://www.aurorasentinel.com/living/features/visual_features/article_d106b3f8-eb59-11df-af95-001cc4c002e0.html

Saipan was under Spanish sovereignty from 1565 to 1899. It then came under German rule (1899–1914) and was a Japanese mandate from 1920 until captured (1944) by U.S. forces during World War II. It became an important U.S. military air base during the latter part of the war. Between 1953 and 1962, it was under U.S. naval jurisdiction and from 1962 to 1986 Saipan served as headquarters of the U.S.-administered United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. The island is part of the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean [Britannica notes].

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