Economics of situation in Iraq

[quade 4]

Ok, I'll admit this is simply a rambling session, but maybe this might also start some other people thinking.

Background

Ok, maybe I haven't been thinking about this the "right" way, but if recent developments on the ground have forced GWB to ask for an additional $25,000,000,000 (yes, that's right twenty-five billion), then is there -maybe- a chance that if we had simply thrown say, $25B at the removal of the regime of Saddam Hussein that we would not have had to fight this war?

Let's say we had simply given the top 1,000 senior Iraqi officials $25 million dollars each . . . hmmm. I mean, wasn't the "bounty" on SH's head only about $25 million? Seems like we kinda cheaped out there and now have to pony up about 1,000 times that even after his capture.

Certainly there were more than 1,000 officials that would have needed to have been "turned", but what's been the cost of this war so far in total?

Hmmm

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[FrancoR 0]

Well there is a big difference betweend "spending" the money on iraqi officials and spending it to your own army. The US forces spend nearly all their money on US companies and personel. Turned iraqi officials will probably spend a lot of their money in their own country and for foreign luxury goods and they don't even all come from the US. Economic effect for the US nearly zero.
Better strategy would have been to not argue with obviously false information to start a war and deal with the issue together with your allies. That would have led to contributions in various forms. For example the first war against Saddam was largely financed by US allies, all the money was spent on the US military and therefor spent in the US. Much better strategy.

If it does not cost anything you are the product.

[PhillyKev 0]

But, it won't cost us anything to rebuild Iraq, it will be paid for with Iraqi oil. That's what Bush said anyway. You mean he wasn't right?

[billvon 3,118]

And history repeats itself again.

Washington Post
$25 Billion More Sought to Fund Wars
May 6, 2004
The White House yesterday asked Congress for an additional $25 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the fiscal year that begins in October, reversing course on its plan to wait until after the election to seek more money . . . Bush included no war funding in his fiscal 2005 budget, and he had hoped to avoid such a request until after the November election.

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Robert Buzzanco
Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam Era
1996
When, inevitably, the funds appropriated for Vietnam proved too limited, the administration would return to Congress with requests for supplemental expenditures for the war, an essentially political device . . . By underfunding the military in Vietnam in his budgets and using supplemental requests to make up for the shortfalls, the defense secretary was providing political cover for the administration, which wanted to avoid debate on the costs of the war.

[PhillyKev 0]

Quote

Bush included no war funding in his fiscal 2005 budget, and he had hoped to avoid such a request until after the November election.

And after he gets this $25b, how much will he be asking for after the election if he wins?

[nacmacfeegle 0]

""Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953"

I kinda like that.

Anyways to supplement to your mullings, Paul....
"COST OF THE WAR
US military operations so far: $168bn *
Military operations (projected): $150bn-300bn
Reconstruction so far: $33bn (US $18.7bn) *
Reconstruction (projected): $50bn-100bn
Extra security: $40bn-80bn
Sources: CBO, CSIS, World Bank
* allocated for US fiscal years 2003-05 "
From my regular source, the Beeb.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3689365.stm

But to me the highest cost shows up in the waste of human life, and the errosion of entente cordiale between the Coalition member states, and the Arab world.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[Macumba 0]