Pentagon spending projections for the U.S. war of aggression in Iraq are hitting new highs.
The Pentagon estimated that the war cost around $8 billion a month in 2006, an increase of $4.4 billion since the war
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A Jan. 17 New York Times article by David Leonhardt projected that the overall cost of the war on Iraq would be a whopping $1.2 trillion. Leonhardt calculated that the war is costing over $200 billion each year right now.
His article, titled “What $1.2 trillion can buy,” stated that the cost of the war could instead pay for such things as a global immunization campaign, universal preschool for every three- and four-year-old child across the United States and completely rebuild New Orleans.
Noted bourgeois economists Linda Bilmes, from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate and former Clinton administration adviser, agree, but estimate an even higher price tag. They have projected that the war will cost more than $2 trillion overall.
The U.S. government has not disputed these estimates.
Deputy defense secretary Gordon England recently testified at a House Budget Committee hearing that after nearly four years of war costs are rising due too expensive equipment, such as helicopters and armored vehicles wearing out or destroyed in combat.
According to Congressional Budget Office testimony, Congress has approved $503 billion since 2001 to pay for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as an assortment of other imperialist ventures. Most of these funds have been rubber stamped by Congress as necessary “emergency spending.” Emergency spending is outside the regular military budget appropriations.
Ahead of the 21,500 soldier troop “surge” announced by Bush on Jan. 10, the White House will ask Congress to pass emergency funding of $100 billion in addition to the $70 billion already approved for this year. This will likely happen in February 2007. While most of the country voted for Democratic Party candidates to express their opposition to the war, the Democrats—ever loyal to U.S. imperialism—have vowed not to cut funding for the war.
The rising cost of war directly translates into fewer benefits and social programs for working-class people.
Leonhardt’s article enumerated some of the things that could be done with the money spent by the U.S. government on imperialist war. But there is much more that could happen. The money could provide 18 million students with 4-year college scholarships. It could build 3,259,534 additional public housing units. It could provide 216,770,860 children with health care.
Instead, the U.S. government has used taxpayers’ dollars to pay for the destruction of Iraq and the death of more than 655,000 Iraqis since 2003. The priorities of the U.S. ruling class are clear indeed.
U.S. troop casualties are also on the rise. As of Jan. 29, 3,079 U.S. troops have died in the war. There was a 60 percent rise in U.S. troop casualties in the fourth quarter of 2006, in comparison with the previous quarter, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count. And the reported figures are low.
The Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group candidly confirmed that the U.S. military undercounts Iraqi casualties. And U.S. troops that are killed or injured in non-combat situations are not included in casualty figures, resulting in highly misleading figures.
The staggering costs of the war in Iraq, both human and economic, provide an example of the contradictory interests of the capitalist class and the working class. Workers are sent to fight and die in wars for capitalist profits. Capitalists spend money on war and exploitation instead of meeting human needs.
To fight capitalism it is essential to fight against imperialist war. The March 17 march on the Pentagon will provide an important opportunity for the anti-war movement and workers in the United States to do this.
U.S. out of Iraq now!
