On Sunday afternoon beginning at 2:00 p.m. Pacific (5:00 p.m. Eastern), FDL Book Salon will be honored to have Linda J. Bilmes, former Commerce Department Chief Financial Officer and now Harvard Kennedy School of Government lecturer, to discuss The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, which Ms. Bilmes co-authored with Nobel economist Joseph E. Stiglitz. Ms. Bilmes will be answering our questions about the study and the reactions to it, and it will be my pleasure to host the discussion.
Because of its stunning findings, the book has received significant attention. The authors recently testified before Congress, and both have written various followup articles, including an op ed for the Washington Post.
The book could not be more timely, coming just before the 5th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq and at a time when the merits and costs of America’s continued occupation have reemerged as a significant Presidential campaign issue.
In a speech earlier this week, President Bush acknowledged concerns about whether whatever he’s achieved by invading and occupying Iraq has been worth the costs. But as Bilmes and Stiglitz document and yesterday’s Times article summarizes, the Bush Administration’s estimates of the war’s cost have been consistently wrong, and not by a little but by at least an order of magnitude:
At the outset of the Iraq war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government.
Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2 trillion is more realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the American occupation continues.
Among economists and policymakers, the question of how to tally the cost of the war is a matter of hot dispute. And the costs continue to climb.
In their Washington Post op ed, Bilmes and Stiglitz address why the staggering costs were ignored for so long:
Why doesn’t the public understand the staggering scale of our expenditures? In part because the administration talks only about the upfront costs, which are mostly handled by emergency appropriations. (Iraq funding is apparently still an emergency five years after the war began.) These costs, by our calculations, are now running at $12 billion a month — $16 billion if you include Afghanistan. By the time you add in the costs hidden in the defense budget, the money we’ll have to spend to help future veterans, and money to refurbish a military whose equipment and materiel have been greatly depleted, the total tab to the federal government will almost surely exceed $1.5 trillion.
But the costs to our society and economy are far greater. . . .
Both Senator Clinton, in a statement Monday, and Senator Obama, in a speech yesterday have emphasized not only the war’s current and expected costs, but also the opportunity costs. It’s what we’ve not done or won’t be able to do because we’ve already spent over $500 billion and continue spending up to $12 billion every month in Iraq with no end in sight.
The book’s provocative findings have elicited numerous reviews. Reactions range from shock to gratitude to near denial, but many focus on the methodology and/or assumptions the authors use. How long will the occupation last? What is a soldier’s death worth? What is the effect on oil prices? How do we estimate long-run health care costs?
You’ll get to ask Ms. Bilmes about these and other issues on Sunday, so it should be a fascinating session. Before then, check out the authors’ Washington Post op ed and at least this Washington Post review. You’ll also want to read on online WaPo chat with Prof. Stiglitz and a recent interview/chat Ms. Bilmes provided for the Boston Globe, in which she noted,
This is the first war that the US has fought what has been entirely financed by borrowing. It is also the first one since the revolutionary war (when the colonies borrowed from france) where we have borrowed heavily from overseas. The effect of all this borrowing is that we have added some $800bn to the national debt, and because we need to repay the money with interest, our children will be paying off the war debt for decades.
Please join us Sunday for what promises to be a great FDL Book Salon. If you haven’t already ordered your copy of The Three Billion Dollar War, you can do so here.
Related posts:
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Barry Ritholtz – Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Dahr Jamail, The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Jurgen Todenhofer, Why Do You Kill?: The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Charles R. Morris : The Sages
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes William Greider: Secrets of the Temple
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Scarecrow!
It’s not a war; it’s a war crime.
What is a soldier’s death worth?
Like they give a fuck.
wow Scarecrow, thanks for the great “pre-quel” to Sunday’s Book Salon, you have a lot of links here, it’s gonna take a while to get through them all.
Op-Eds for the Washington Post? Watch out…that’ll get someone hurt: http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/291.html
There will be a quiz. Good morning everyone.
btw, this is just a preview of Book Salon, so other topics are fine this morning.
I’ve been watching MSNBC to see if there is anything breaking on the Obama passport snooping. We’ll be watching that all day. I like Attaturk’s “quote” from Condi Rice: “Who could have anticipated . . .?”
This campaign sure has its share of ups/downs/diversions.
Anyway, anything is on topic. What’s going on out there?
Good morning– the promised book salon looks fascinating!
I am watching this right now on cspan– it’s very good.
8am – Dalia Mogahed, Co-Author, “Who Speaks For Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think”
Besides travel what other type of information would a passport file contain?
Morning everybody. I’m oiff work this Good Friday so I get to hang out. Sounds like a good book salon but don’t know if I’ll beat an Easter thing or not.
Scarecrtow, meant to tell you. You had an excellent post a while back. About ghow Obama needed to talk about how he would really change things — the whole mindset. And most importantly, to me that Clinton also has to talk about this. Since BO has made change such a dominant theme not enough people are asking Hillary questions about how she’d change things –really change things. My guess is she won’t. Obama ? Who knows. But I have more — hate to say a 4 letter word this early –hope.
The reason I ask is that the Somali picture of Obama was realized four days after one of the searches. Would his travel within the country be noted?
Jake Tapper at ABC News’ Political Punch blog relates Dept of State obfuscation when questioned concerning the Obama Passport affair.
a long and close campaign sure is a formula for craziness.
i was surprised — almost shocked– by Huckabee telling people to get off Obama’s back on this Wright thing. Good for him.
Good Morning Scarecrow and Firedogs -
well let’s start with the Senator and Mrs. Obama’s social security numbers – thank goodness that couldn’t lead to anything . . .
In my own business travel out of country, even before 9/11, I’d get routine questions about what I was doing in country, who I’d meet, purpose of my visit, where I’d be staying, etc; requests for lengthy work visas would be even more detailed.
Never too early in the day for hope.
that sound good. think i’ll tune in. but i got a new cable provider and i don’t know where c-span is yet. here we go channel surfing.
I see in the FDL news box that Bill Richardson is endorsing Obama today (tomorrow?) in Oregon. I thought perhaps Edwards would do that last night on Jay Leno, but he didn’t. But Edwards is now on the West Coast though as is Obama for the next couple of days in Oregon, so who knows?
Speaking of private contractors. The IRS contracts out debt collection now. Gee, can’t imagine any trouble spots there.
bill richardson endorsed obama? is he a superdelegate? can’t hurt.
Good morning Cbl.
The post contains links to new articles reporting the Clinton and Obama speeches on the war costs. If you want to read the actual speeches . . .
Hillary Clinton, March 17
Barack Obama, March 20
the latter is focused on war’s costs; Obama gave a separate speech on Iraq, withdrawals, and his Middle East policy the day before. That speech is available from the same site.
On MSN, all of the experts interviewed on the Obama passport file episode were Republicans. They all made the point about “this is what happens with big government,” and “just a lowly civil servant supervisor over some contractor peons.” Finally, Rachel Maddow noted that there needed to be some investigation into who the contractor was.
No one noted that the contract employees must be the dumbest people on earth. Lets see, you either work in or hired into an office where somebody got fired a month ago and they keep doing the exact thing. I guess their sort of like buffalo, just keep grazing as others drop around them.
It’s been interesting how Obama has been hitting all the states in the last couple of days (Penn, IN, WV, NC, OR today), whereas Clinton has been more Penn-focused.
The 50 versus 15 state strategy. Notice how Team Clinton has started ramping up the rhetoric against Howard Dean as well, saying he should “fix” the FL/MI situations? The DLCers have vocally opposed Howard Dean since before he started leading the DLC, and now Clintonistas seem opposed Dem Party discipline, which has been desparately need for years and is what Dean-led DNC has thankfully done with the FL/MI deals.
Further proof for me that the DLC exists to destroy the DemocratIC Party from within. Why would any “Democrat” oppose a 50 State Strategy or campaign, especially considering how the McAuliffe/Clinton 15 State Strategy nearly buried the Dem Party for good over a 10-15 year period?
WAH…”before Dean started leading the DNC….”
from State site -
Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited and subject to prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984 and Title 18 U.S.C. Sec.1001 and 1030.
- which was amended in scope and penalties by the Patriot Act
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act link
It was in FDL news box but seems to be gone now. It is now on the Yahoo frontpage here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..richardson
I did hear some strategist say that Obama ought to get the MSS following him around all of the remaining states, rather than allow Clinton to focus all the attention on Pennsylvania. They noted that he should dilute the impression that Pennsylvania is the only remainging “really important” state.
three trillion is a lot of dollars.
and the return we get on our investment is a net loss.
worse yet, there isn’t even a net.
Correction: MSM for MSS
mornin’ – it’s a world gone mad Gill
Bill Richardson is an alpha super delegate and now a former Clintonista – jeebus, those two really need to work on their people skills
Rather, this is what you get when you let Republicans, who don’t believe in big government, run a big government. Republicans should be restricted to running town councils, which are governments of a size they might approve.
Richardson is a superdelegate, and I’d guess he’d have some sway with other undeclared supers.
Wonder what role Obama has suggested Bill could play in an Obama Administration?
The pattern from Watergate was for the Nixon White House to trivialize the breakin at the Democratic headquarters as a “3rd rate burglary.” Nothing to see here; move along.
Yes. Since the governement responsibility had already been contracted out, I guess their answer is that we just need to forget about issuing passports.
Exactly. Where can we find a Judge Sirrica?
One of the flaws in Stig’s logic is the cost associated with “replacing” the lost/used and ruined military gear from the ME wars.
Why do we have to replace this?
How about using this as an opportunity to downsize the military and re evaluate some of these procurements and what we are paying for them and whether we even need them?
Why can’t we have the discussion:
Why is our big military such a failure at “winning” wars in countries smaller than California which have been under bombing and blockade for a decade to “soften” them up?
The DOD couldn’t catch a guy on a camel in the mountains with their satellites which can read a license plate?
Ha?
Uh oh, Shuster just linked Clinton to this breach. The head of the dept. was once appointed to be an ambassorder by BJC.
The tax payers have been ripped off and we need re think what we are spending our tax dollars for.
We had a thread about the tanker contract for 100 billion.
Why the F do we need 100 billion dallars worth of tankers to refuel dig fighting strafe bombers which are only used to attack people around the world?
How about a DEFENSE department instead of and OFFENSE department?
Sorry for the typo
Downsize. Everyone’s talking about expanding the military. The logic is: since we’re going to have a lot of our Army/Marines bogged down in Iraq, we need more soldiers in case we need to fight yet another war.
Reggie Walton proved that folks like Sirica — willing to hold the Executive Branch accountable — are still around.
The passport scandal illustrates what we already know:
There is no privacy in the USA
There is no one protecting our 4th amendment rights
There is no accountability for breaking the law excdept for the little people
Debates about FISA is simple to protect the big people from legal accountability.
They will spy and are spying whenever they want on whomever they want
Big brother IS watching you and you can do nothing about it.
800 billion divided by 700 days = 1.09439124 × 10
China/Saudi Express Card, don’t leave home without it
I give the authors mad props on their research alone – it will shock the Corporate Media Zombies to learn much of it is available through open media sourcing – having to wade through CRS and other govt reporting would be a herculean task let alone imagining the incompetence and other roadblocks Mr Cheney has in place -
War’s cost a nation in both blood and treasure. Progressives tend to focus on the human cost, which we find the most horrifying, but Republican’s tend to see that cost in a different context. “We can sustain this casualty rate as long as necessary. It’s only two percent of the casualty rate from domestic auto accidents. It’s really nothing. We lost 3000 people in a few minutes on 9/11.” But they do get worried when they see the buying power of their investments shrink by 50% compared to the Euro. That’s a matter for concern.
This is the time to debunk that narrative.
The left has to really pull back the curtain on the “national security” myth narrative.
What nation / group is a threat to the usa. What ACTUALLY is the threat?
In reality the wealthy don’t care about currency devaluation as they hedge their “bet” buy own half their wealth in euros or other counter currencies. Dollar drops X, their other half rises X.
Plus, what is the effective difference in the life style of someone with $50mm and someone with $500mm? Not much except the size of the yacht.
Come on progressive… you need to really dig into the false narratives around you.
Capitalism and the Military Industrial complex have turned first the Americans into “slaves” and then outsourced their slavery to countries around the world.
The ME wars were for control of oil and with that we have seen the price rise 5x since the war started.
Someone(s) are making out like bandits and the bill for it is being passed to our future.
The financiers of this madness create bubbles, convince people that they MUST be in the “Ownership” society… just the modern way to run “the company store”.
We have been addicted to credit / debt and the notion that we must live and work to service debt to the banks. Lovely
The entire “terrorism” thing was the MICs rationale to keep the cold ware military spending rip off going. But they have expanded their demands, their schemes. And now we live in a virtual police state, where we take off our shoes to fly, where we have our communications tapped, where we can’t live without a credit card which leaves a complete trail of your life.
We need a regime change and a paradigm revolution.
Uh oh, I wonder if those low level contractors who breached Obama’s passport were in “The Family”! Maybe they were staying in one of those “single-sex group homes” run by “The Family”!
But MIC spending is nicely spread through every state and country in this nation. It is like an inoperable cancer that if removed will kill the patient.
Like Bearn Sterns… too big to fail! We addicted ourselves to the jobs of the MIC and it polluted the minds of Americans with feelings of patriotism.
Who is also dragging along a hand cranked dialysis machine.
IBM was a major supporter of the Nazis enabling the data management of the holocaust. Lovely.
Did you see any IBM officials held accountable?
Isn’t there supposed to be a briefing on the passport breach at 9? I can’t find it.
Chances are the OBL is dead.
But even if he was alive he could not have planned the 911 events from a cave in tora bora… nor from an apartment in Hanburg or a house in FL.
911 was either the confluence of 100 coincidences or the work or well planned high level false flag operation which would be pinned on arabs… even perhaps “use” them to start the never ending war and the transfer of trillions to the MIC.
Businesses don’t put themselves out of business. They don’t please their owners without growth. The MIC has an insatiable need for war and cash.
Computerworld has a FAQ style piece that describes the State Department database in question.
An example,
Other questions addressed:
If Obama wasn’t doing anything wrong, he doesn’t have anything to worry about. I don’t understand why people are so upset about this little peek-see
Nice Bushian framing there.
-G
From AP this morning:
The firings and unspecified discipline of the third employee already had occurred when senior State Department officials learned of the breaches. Kennedy called that a failing.
”I will fully acknowledge this information should have been passed up the line,” Kennedy told reporters in a conference call Thursday night. ”It was dealt with at the office level.”
wow. i didn’t know that our answers to those questions were part of our file.
how about the questions we answer at the countries we visit?
You obviously interact with a wealthier and more sophisticated class of Republicans than I do. ;-)
…it’s the principle of the thing…of course Obama has absolutely nothing to worry about…
I think we should believe the Bush administration when they say en masse, and in unison that it is merely imprudent curiosity by low level employees.
I say fire those low level people and let the higher ups keep their high paying jobs.
-G
I would expect to hear that from Druggy Limbaugh, but then I can’t stand to listen to his show.
Newt Gingrich (of all people) on PassportGate,
Oh yes they are. I happen to know that US government has a huge file on me–when I was a freshman at NYU in 1971, I dated Judy Turco, a member of the Weather Underground and an undergrad at Columbia. The US government investigated me for one year when I applied for my US citizenship that year. I’ve been vetted ever since…
my tinfoil easter bonnet is all atwitter in my undercaffeinated state -
am I to understand the passport story ‘broke’ when a reporter approached State officials and it was a Moonie Times reporter ?
now maybe it’s Cheney goin’ all Mean Girls on Condi again, but they are not normally in the business of embarrassing the current administration, couple that with DiGenova blasting it and it involves a Clinton appointee ??
selise -
per DiGenova last night – anything said to a US DOS employee, or shared with them by another country’s officials is in the file as well
FYI–
Been traveling with a US passport since 1971 to disparate parts of the globe, including mainland China in 2002–and that huge file can only have been augmented ever since. But I really have nothing to worry about…*g*
Sorry if this has been posted
Bill Clinton and Rev Wright
In a reverse situation, there would be a loud Republic chorus demanding the resignation of the Sec’y of State and the appointment of a Special Prosecutor. Of course, Republics are irony-free so they won’t hesitate to scoff at any outrage over these violations.
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Really.
I watched the Dalia Mogaheb (Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think) segment on cspan this am and it was informative– perhaps a future book salon???
check out what some very smart folks have to say about the book:
http://www.gallup.com/press/10…..Think.aspx
(hope the link works– it’s been tricky)
We don’t know yet if Clinton is involved but it’s very rovian that Clinton may become the focus rather than bushco.
Unless some ‘low level’ contractor decides he/she wants to look at them.
Then it’s ok.
If a news article was in the front page News Box and is no longer showing, all you have to do to find it is click on the more news link in the upper right hand corner of the news box. From there you can scroll down through all the recent news reports and page further back to earlier and earlier news reports. On a heavy news day, you might find the story you had looked at earlier two or three pages down.
Has President Carter visited FDL to talk about his most recent book?
but that’s different (not saying ok) than keeping track of every question every business person and tourist gets asked who (i presume) doesn’t already have a “file” (for whatever bullshit reason).
re resupplying the military – we’re going to have to issue more GOP welfare and keep the military-industrial complex on salary as we retool their factories for the new energy industry.
‘morning, pups. Richardson’s endorsement of Obama on at 12:30 ET. They’re in Oregon.
MPR/NPR had a program earlier this week with your two authors and their book, Scarecrow. You may be able to find a link at their website [sorry, I’m away from my broadband in dinosaur dialup slowness mode].
Go, O! [and no that is not a basketball yell].
Indeed. In the same vein, why all the hub-bub about FISA?
If you aren’t doing anything wrong, why not let the government rummage around in your electronic data like a sock drawer?
Where is Hugh when you need him with his spectacular ream of information.
“It was some low level contract employee…”
Lets see, My Lai, how many higher ups were ever convicted?
Abu Ghraib, how many higher ups were ever convicted?
And I really love that lawyerese “prudent, imprudent.”
As someone said earlier, lets hope there is a Judge Sirica, or a Judge Walton waiting in the wings to deal with anything discovered.
Particularly, since the government has become a group of private contractors.
Glenn Greenwald has an interesting commentary on this snooping incident, concluding:
i think so. even if it is bribery, if they’d retool for alternative low carbon energy (for example), i’d be willing to promise the welfare would continue.
My understanding is that everyone who has the passport and travels has a corresponding file. So if that average business person or tourist has been asked questions as part of their travel, then the information is most likely captured in their individual files.
Has anybody asked whether other files were similarly accessed by these 3?
And the State Department didn’t fire the contractor, nor are we sure the contractor fired the perpetrators — they may have simply been reassigned.
of all the dolts on msnbc last nite– Larry the Tool Eagleburgermeister took the proverbial cake.
although Joe Toensing and his faux outrage was a close second.
Mrs. Greenspan made me LOL with her prolonged silences and deer in the headlights stare while being actually questioned by KO.
we’ll see you Sunday Scarecrow, do we have to supply our own blue books?
Ah, Blue Books. Are they still used? Same color? Actually, I will single out my favorite people and they will be given exemptions; the rest of you are on pass/fail.
Not necessarily so.
This is all crap.
Why would someone (I’m sorry, 3 someones) risk losing their job, even as a contractor, to snoop in a security code protected passport file of a US Senator who just happens to be running for president?
It’s like chess; sacrifice a few pawns to get the info you need to do your upcoming dirty work. But unlike chess, due to wingnut welfare these fired ‘pawns’ will resurface as contractors elsewhere.
The green economy – the next bubble. The predators are already lining up and setting up the prey.
I said this less eloquently last night.
Obviously they would try to fog the truth.
Why do you believe this white wash? IBM gave the nazis the equipment to encode all the odious data for managing the 3rd reich and the holocaust.
There is ample evidence of this.
Even the Isrealites made spears in times of peace.
The perpetrators are/were almost surely not independent contractors. Rather, they are/were employees of some corporation, likely a subsidiary of Halliburton, that has a contract with the State Department for providing various services. I doubt that corporation lost its contract, and I suspect that those employees are still employed by the contractor to some other account.
Thank you Marion. I’m glad someone finally called bs on this.
I don’t care what the Israelites did in times of peace.
They were supposed to be beating their spears in plowshares and pruning hooks no?
Not BS at all. IBM assisted the Nazies as did Prescott Bush… and many wall street bankers. Why deny it?
I agree that there are many problems with the MIC as it exists today. Can you see that if we do not have a competent standing Army that we are asking for trouble?
If you get rid of companies like Lockheed-Martin or you destabilize them so they are unable to do what they are in the business of doing, who will do that when we need that capability. What, do we outsource our military production offshore? And don’t tell me we don’t need a military arm to our government. Do you have locks on the doors to your house, or your car? Do you walk around the streets in the rough parts of town blithely unaware that you are putting yourself in harms way? Of course not.
Where do you think the competent trained people who come out of the military go when they are released from the service? They go to government contractors, who need that expertise. Whether it’s a software developer (who busted his ass to get a CS degree on military assistance – which he EARNED by putting his butt on the line for however long), or a welder who works in a shipyard welding HY-80 steel plates on a submarine because he knows what he’s doing and is good at it. These are all parts of our infrastructure, and we need to support it.
Of course there were many international companies in Europe in the 30s that had to supply the Axis when they rolled into Poland. No one at the time could really believe that anyone would commit such an evil act, and they ignored the clear warning signs. How do you stop a jack-booted storm trooper armed with an MP-40 who just kicked down your front door and said he wanted all your inventory? Do you drive a BMW? You might have to give that up.
I could go on, but frankly I’m getting tired of this. My point is that sure it needs to be cleaned up, but be judicious. Like everything else in the world around us, there are parts that need to be husbanded and nourished. Scorched earth is never a good policy.