The Bush administration has filed the new supplemental appropriation request for Iraq - $70 billion (with a B).

That brings the total to $225 billion - so Kerry has been underestimating the cost.

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Here's what Bush officials were saying about the cost in 2003.
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Earlier this year, experts said the war and aftermath in Iraq would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, a fact the White House refused to acknowledge as valid, even going so far as to fire Lawrence Lindsey for his realistic projections. In September, 2003, Paul Wolfowitz even told the Senate “no one said we would know anything other than this would be very bloody, it could be very long and by implication, it could be very expensive." Here’s a record of what the administration, in fact, said:

Budget Director Mitch Daniels

Ø On September 15th 2002, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsay estimated the high limit on the cost to be 1-2% of GNP, or about $100-$200 billion. Mitch Daniels, Director of the Office of Management and Budget subsequently discounted this estimate as “very, very high” and stated that the costs would be between $50-$60 billion [Source: WSJ, “Bush Economic Aide Says Cost Of Iraq War May Top $100 Billion,” Davis 09/16/02; NYT, “Estimated Cost of Iraq War Reduced, Bumiller, 12/31/02; Reuters News, “Daniels sees U.S. Iraq war cost below $200 billion,” 09/18/02]

Ø “When a reporter asked Daniels yesterday whether the administration was preparing to ask other countries to help defray possible Iraq war costs, as the United States did for the 1991 war, the budget director said he knew of no such plans. Other countries are having economic downturns of their own, he said.” [Source: Pittsburgh-Post Gazette, “Byrd attacks cost of possible Iraq War, McFeatters, 9/25/02]

Ø “There’s just no reason that this can’t be an affordable endeavor.” [Source: Reuters, “U.S. Officials Play Down Iraq Reconstruction Needs,” Entous, 4/11/03]

Ø “The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid.” [Source: Washington Post, 4/21/03]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

Ø “Well, the Office of Management and Budget, has come up come up with a number that's something under $50 billion for the cost. How much of that would be the U.S. burden, and how much would be other countries, is an open question.” [Source: Media Stakeout, 1/19/03]

Ø “I don’t know that there is much reconstruction to do.” [Source: Reuters, “U.S. Officials Play Down Iraq Reconstruction Needs,” Entous, 4/11/03]

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz

Ø “I think it's necessary to preserve some ambiguity of exactly where the numbers are.” [Source: House Budget Committee, 2/27/03]

Top Economist Adviser Glen Hubbard

Ø “Costs of any such intervention would be very small.” [Source: CNBC, 10/4/02]

Budget Director Josh Bolten

Ø “We don't anticipate requesting anything additional for the balance of this year.” [Source: Congressional Testimony , 7/29/03]

And remember, Lawrence Lindsay got fired because he said the cost of the war might be in the $100B to $200 B range.

And Wolfowitz - he said the whole cost could probably be covered by selling Iraqi oil.

MORE:

Press Secretary Ari Fleischer: “Well, the reconstruction costs remain a very -- an issue for the future. And Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction.” [Source: White House Press Briefing, 2/18/03]

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage: “This is not Afghanistan…When we approach the question of Iraq, we realize here is a country which has a resource. And it’s obvious, it’s oil. And it can bring in and does bring in a certain amount of revenue each year…$10, $15, even $18 billion…this is not a broke country.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: “There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “If you [Source: worry about just] the cost, the money, Iraq is a very different situation from Afghanistan…Iraq has oil. They have financial resources.” [Source: Fortune Magazine, Fall 2002]

State Department Official Alan Larson: “On the resource side, Iraq itself will rightly shoulder much of the responsibilities. Among the sources of revenue available are $1.7 billion in invested Iraqi assets, the found assets in Iraq…and unallocated oil-for-food money that will be deposited in the development fund.” [Source: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Iraq Stabilization, 06/04/03]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “I don't believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it. [Source: Senate Appropriations Hearing, 3/27/03]

LIAR, LIAR PANTS ON FIRE.

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

Someone you can trust!

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...ter_cronkite_2

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And the new supplemental $80 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan brings the Iraq total to ................................$280 billion. Far below Kerry's assertion which caused the WH to attack him for bad numbers.

And Rumsfeld now says we will need 120,000 troops after the elections . . . for the next two years. That should keep the cash register ringing.

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs

Bump - there's nothing I can say to make it any clearer what these self-serving carreer miliatary and oil contractors have done in duping our contry into this war for their own personal profits. Their own lies are such perfect indictments.

Bump!

My students are sitting in broken desks in a room with broken window latches and missing ceiling tiles and there's "no money" to fix any of it.

This is what happens to the IRAQ oil money that is suppose to help fund reconstruction.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme..._4/4216853.stm

I've always found these financial gripes to be far and away the least effective of the anti-Bush/anti-war arguments. Is anyone genuinely surprised about the spiraling cost? Politicians always sandbag on financial estimates, and even seemingly predictable government programs routinely run over budget. War is just about the least predictable enterprise the government engages in. Furthermore, it undermines the much stronger moral argument against war. In other words, if you feel the war was right, it's justifiable at any cost; if you feel it's wrong, it's unjustifiable even at bargain basement prices. When you take shots at Bush on the war's price tag, you look peevish, not principled. The death toll argument suffers the same weakness. If you oppose the war on principle, it shouldn't matter if the death toll is 13 or 1300.

If I were to turn around the chess board and play the opponent's pieces, I'd capitalize more on the security issues. In one of the other threads, seand mentioned what I feel is the most potent argument against the Iraq war; namely, that it is increasing the threat to the west by recruiting terrorists — precisely the opposite of the rationale given by the administration. I've always felt Bush was too one-sided in his prosecution of the war on terror, focusing on neutralizing actual and potential threats but recklessly disregarding how his actions are motivating others to join the ranks of al-Qaeda and other anti-western groups. That rationale has traction with independents and GOP moderates; kvetching about the price tag doesn't.

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I don't think it's peevish to complain that the Bush Admin is bankrupting the USA and lying about it from dawn till dusk. Iraq is a money pit and it's getting wider. No money = no domestic security, no weapons or armor for troops in play, no intelligence... No anything. As Geno touched on, social services, health care and educational services etc etc etc will find their funding dried up.

I find your moral stance of "why complain about 100,000 dead louder than 3000 dead" to be moronic. Most of us here oppose the war. We're not supposed to get MORE upset as the deathtoll continues to grow? We're upset that the war exists. We're upset that 1 soldier died and we're upset that more die daily ... all based on a continuously reinforced lie.

* numbers reflect rounded down numbers of Iraqi civilians killed vs America civilians killed

I think Winston's points are well taken on a purely moral level. If you oppose the war, it wouldn't matter if it really could be done on the cheap.

The point of the quotes at the begining of this thread point out the degree to which the folks responsible for setting the policy of this war out-and-out mislead the American people. They, in effect, told the american people that reorganzing Iraq and imposing democracy would be a a walk in the park when nearly every miliatary expert and piece of evidence from outside the Bush administration said otherwise. Keeping tabs on the costs gives a good measure of the level of hypocracy in the current administration.

Also, I would argue that the ballooning cost of the war gives an insight into one of the real motivating factors for this war - to subsidize Haliburton, Bechtel and other oil and miliatary contractors. Giving freedom to Iraq is a nice thing, but Bush's frequent evoking of the word "freedom" doesn't explain why it is so much more important to deliver it to Iraq than to Darfur Somalia wher 1.6 million people are displaced by the effects of what the Bush administration itself has titled "genocide". Many on the left chant "No blood for oil" but the big oil companies had a freindly relationship with Saddam's regime for many years. Saddam was all to willing to exploit his country's resources to consolidate his power and enrich himself. Looking at who benefits from the ever expanding trust fund for Iraq shows who is really experiencing "liberation" from the billions and billions we are sending over to rebuild Iraq.

The US death toll during World War II was 400,000. By contrast "only" 55,000 Americans died in Vietnam. By your calculus, does that make WWII "more wrong" than Vietnam? The WWII toll for the Soviet Union was an astonishing number, at least 25 million deaths. Were they wrong to fight? Should they have capped it at, say, 10 million and then thrown in the towel once that number was reached?

I'm not arguing that the Iraq war is anywhere near as justifiable as WWII, of course. You've got every right to oppose this or any other war. But I think it's more principled to say it's wrong no matter what the final number. And, conversely, when you fight a justified war (WWII, American revolution), the death toll is tragic but necessary.

Anyway, that was just a tangent from the original topic. The US is hardly going "bankrupt" because of the Iraq war. :roll:

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