Mike Linksvayer

$700 billion fraud

Now: U.S. government spending $5.6 billion each month in Iraq and Afghanistan, not including some costs for maintenance and replacement of equipment and some training and reconstruction costs. Financial cost of Iraq war could exceed $700 billion.

Six months ago: U.S. government spending $5.4 billion each month on the two wars. I guess that financial cost of Iraq war will come to $500 billion.

Before 2003 invasion: Cost of Iraq war estimated at $50 billion, with assurances that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for much of the effort. Note missing zero.

Throughout U.S. history (and probably time immemorial): Financial cost of war consistently underestimated by a factor of ten.

Has even a single person been held accountable? Where is the clamor for a Military Planning Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 21st, 2005 at 21:48 and is filed under Economics, Iraq, Peeves, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “$700 billion fraud”

1. Mike Linksvayer » Blog Archive » Enough dead says:

   2005-08-07 at 11:24

   [...] But I’m all for gratuitous speech. Fuck the U.S. troops. And don’t forget to count small change or to understand real change. [...]
2. Mike Linksvayer » Blog Archive » Trillion dollar fraud says:

   2005-08-24 at 20:51

   [...] At a glance it looks like Bilmes and Nordhaus each are including things like debt financing costs, increased veteran’s benefits and oil prices in their estimates, accouting for the half trillion increase over other recent estimates that the direct financial cost of the war could come to $700 trillion. [...]
3. Mike Linksvayer says:

   2007-07-20 at 12:28

   Two years later burning $12 billion/month.