The Terrible Costs of Bush’s Reckless “War on Terror”

By Delinda C. Hanley


	Wounded Iraqi girls cry at a hospital in the city of Samarra, 78 miles north of Baghdad, on Sept. 20, 2006. A suicide bomber smashed his car into the house of a tribal leader, killing six people and wounding 37, police said. Most of the victims were children. Iraqis have paid dearly for “Operation Iraqi Freedom” (AFP Photo/Mahmmoud Al-Samarraei).

FIVE YEARS AFTER the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Americans are finally examining the human and financial tolls of the “War on Terror” (see box) and deciding if the world is now a safer place. As the Nov. 7 congressional elections approach, more and more voters are asking candidates this and other tough questions about the war. It’s time for Americans to cross-examine the leaders who got us into this fix, as well as those who promise to get us out.

Does a candidate want to “stay the course” and continue the current military fiasco or hold a referendum to ask Iraqis and Afghans if they want the occupation of their lands to end? If Iraqis and Afghans choose freedom and self-determination, would that candidate vote to provide them with the financial resources to fix the infrastructure destroyed in years of war? This approach would be more honorable, not to mention cheaper, than continuing to support Bush’s war without end.

In a debate broadcast on Sept. 17, NBC’s Tim Russert asked Sen. George Allen (R-VA) and his Democratic challenger, former Secretary of the Navy James Webb: “If you knew Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction, was it still worth going to war?”

Allen stood by his vote to support the war, while Webb said, “What you’ve seen over the last six years is a war that is an incredible strategic blunder of historic proportions...We didn’t go into Iraq because of terrorism. We have terrorists in Iraq because we went in there.”

Candidates no longer can plead ignorance or misinformation. The non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) estimates the U.S. war in Iraq costs $6 billion a month, or $200 million a day. Readers may recall the furor roused in September 2002, when Lawrence Lindsey, then President George W. Bush’s top economic adviser, estimated the war in Iraq might cost $200 billion. He was rebuked and fired. Paul Wolfowitz, then Donald Rumsfeld’s deputy at the Pentagon, assured Congress that Iraqi oil revenues would pay our post-invasion expenses. Informed candidates now know the true cost of the war on a country which the president has admitted had nothing to do with 9/11.

Has the War Made Us Safer?

Just as Israel has discovered in Lebanon and Palestine, you can’t bomb a country into submission. It turns your own nation into a pariah state and energizes freedom fighters or terrorists around the world. After the initial worldwide support immediately following 9/11, Pew Research Center polls show a precipitous decline in positive attitudes toward the United States in Europe, Indonesia, Jordan, Turkey and Japan. Thanks to the occupation of Iraq, the scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and accusations of U.S. troops raping, murdering and torturing Iraqis, the United States now has very low popularity ratings, according to polls conducted by Zogby International.

Muslim-majority countries, as well as 75 percent of American Muslims and 70 percent of British Muslims, believe the “War on Terrorism” actually is a “War on Islam.” A growing number of people, both at home and abroad, believe the U.S. is fighting this war in order to control world oil supplies, achieve world hegemony and support Israel.

Finally, a 2006 BBC poll found that in 33 of the 35 countries surveyed—a sampling from five continents and the Middle East—on average 60 percent think the war in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism. Isn’t it time for our elected leaders to change direction? If they don’t, perhaps in November Americans will elect new representatives who will.

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor and executive director of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

SIDEBAR

Lives Lost in “War on Terror”

On Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorist attacks killed 2,973 people. As of Sept. 11, 2006, more than 3,284 American servicemembers have died in the “War on Terror,” and 19,910 have been wounded. The latter number is controversial because it includes only those wounded in direct hostile action, and not those suffering from “non-battle” injuries, hurt in vehicular accidents, or sickened by disease or depression. Of course, there has been no attempt to record the numbers of wounded Iraqis or Afghans.

According to a shocking report by David Randall and Emily Gosden and published in the UK’s Independent the day before the fifth anniversary of 9/11, the “War on Terror”—and terrorists—have “directly killed a minimum of 62,006 people, created 4.5 million refugees and cost the U.S. more than the sum needed to pay off the debts of every poor nation on earth.”

Randall and Gosden poured over figures furnished by the U.S. Department of Defense, which prior to 2005 neglected to record the numbers of Iraqi dead. (Remember the top officer in the U.S. Central Command for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gen. Tommy Franks, telling reporters during the Afghan campaign, “We don’t do body counts”?)

The two reporters also used the very reliable Iraq Body Count (<www.iraqbodycount.org>). By tracking media reports of deaths, Iraq Body Count academics keep a running total of Iraqis reported killed by coalition forces or by insurgents. (This is no easy feat, as this magazine has discovered in tabulating Palestinian and Israeli children who have been killed since September 2000 for <www.rememberthesechildren.org>.)

In addition to compiling U.S. and coalition fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (<www.icasualties.org>) also lists U.S. fatalities who have died “out of theater” in hospitals in Germany and the United States, as well as the names, nationalities, circumstances, and occupations of international contractors killed.

Finally, a study of civilian casualties in Afghanistan by Prof. Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire (<www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm>) also helped Randall and Gosden reach their conclusion: “As of yesterday [Sept. 9, 2006], the numbers of lives confirmed lost are: 4,541 to 5,308 civilians and 385 military in Afghanistan; 50,100 civilians and 2,899 military in Iraq; and 4,081 in acts of terrorism in the rest of the world.”

They concluded their article with a caveat: “If estimates of other, unquantified, deaths—of insurgents, the Iraq military during the 2003 invasion, those not recorded individually by Western media, and those dying from wounds—are included, then the toll could reach as high as 180,000.”—D.C.H.

SIDEBAR 2

Cost of “War on Terror” in Treasure

The Iraq war already has cost the United States $320 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS). As of July 2006, Congress has approved $437 billion for costs related to the war on terror. CRS estimates are conservative compared to those of Scott Wallsten of the American Enterprise Institute, who estimates an overall cost to date of $500 billion, with as much again possible.

In a study published April 7, 2006, Joseph Stiglitz, a Columbia University economist and former Nobel Prize winner, and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes estimated the conflict ultimately may cost between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. “Like the iceberg that hit the Titanic, the full costs of the war are still largely hidden below the surface,” they warned. “Our calculations include not just the money for combat operations but also the costs the government will have to pay for years to come. These include lifetime healthcare and disability benefits for returning veterans and special round-the-clock medical attention for many of the 16,300 Americans who already have been seriously wounded.”

Stiglitz and Bilmes also count the cost of replacing military hardware, as well as re-enlistment bonuses and benefits to attract reluctant soldiers. “On top of this,” they explain, “because we finance the war by borrowing more money (mostly from abroad), there is a rising interest cost on the extra debt.”

The two conclude, “Had we waited for the outcome of the U.N. weapons inspections, the value of the information would arguably have saved the nation at least $1 trillion—enough to fix Social Security for the next 75 years twice over.”

The entire report is available at <www.columbia.edu/cu/news/06/04/stiglitz.html>.—D.C.H.