The escalation gets a price tag

January 10, 2007

The cost in human lives will no doubt be great, but we now have a sense of what Bush’s troop escalation plan will cost U.S. taxpayers.

President George W. Bush’s plan for Iraq includes a $6.8 billion budget request to pay for a 20,000 troop increase as well as jobs and reconstruction programs aimed at stabilizing the country, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. […]

The $6.8 billion will be added to a broader war-spending bill Bush will unveil in February for fiscal 2007, according to two U.S. official[s] who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.

The total price tag for the emergency legislation was already expected to reach $100 billion, making 2007 the costliest year yet for the conflict.

It’s doubtful this price tag will make the escalation policy any more palatable to the country.

And in related news:

The thousands of troops that President Bush is expected to order to Iraq will join the fight largely without the protection of the latest armored vehicles that withstand bomb blasts far better than the Humvees in wide use, military officers said.

Vehicles such as the Cougar and the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle have proven ability to save lives, but production started late and relatively small numbers are in use in Iraq, mostly because of money shortages, industry officials said.

Unbelievable.

“Unbelievable” … except in George Walker Bush’s alice-in-wonderland world of delusion and Richard Bruce Cheney’s never-never-land underworld of cynicism.

  • The excitement is palpable as the first surge of troops is supposed to hit Iraq withini 5 days. This group will fly in and immediately be absorbed in the troops already there (and the almost equal number of contractors). Then in another month more troops will come in and be indistinguishable from the troops already there. Several thousand will be rotating out and being replaced. They may have to mark the “surge” troops to they can figure out who they are after 15 minutes on the ground.

    And part of the surge will already be there and receive an extension and a reassignment.

    To use a surfing analogy, this surge won’t be a tsunami, it will be that slightly larger wave in the set. Maybe it’ll be worth catching and maybe not.

    20k troops would have an impact in Darfur but it’ll probably be more annoying than feared to the Iraqi insurgents.

    Will there be a Contractor surge?

  • It is so obvious that if we can’t afford to fight a war with the best equipment technology has developed, and then we should not be fighting it at all. If we need money for equipment for the troops, then we have to raise some taxes for the funds we need. Maybe we could start with some multi-millionaires paying their fair share. Perhaps a rational congress should offer a sane proposal to rectify the situation.

  • Marcus hits it correctly.
    We need for Congress to say that we will pay for any and all of this with additional taxes on Bush’s base.
    Commander Codpiece’s friends will love him for such an opportunity to be patriotic. After all, if our troops are sacrificing, why shouldn’t the very wealthy?

  • jobs and reconstruction programs aimed at stabilizing the country

    Because the money earmarked for the same thing earlier in the war was used to heat homes.

    Cheney likes to talk about percents, maybe we should talk about plain old cents. As in Bush won’t get one red cent until he explains what the fuck became of the money he already got.

  • If the casualty rate of our troops is about 1 out of 4000 troops in country, then about 5 of these surge lambs will be sacrificed each month.

  • Look, it doesn’t matter how much it costs; we need to fight the terrorist there so we don’t fight them here. If the angry, dirty demoncRATS have their way, Osama, Saddam’s crew and the Iranian terrorist hippies will come to our cities and destroy every living thing in America; I don’t know how, but you know if they could they would. And the librul demoncRATS will just stand by, with their eyes half closed, too stoned to react. The troops won’t be able to help because they will be too busy cleaning themselves of the spit that dirty, angry hippie lefties continually heave on them wherever they go.

    Why do libruls hate America? Why does the demoncRAT party want Osama to rule the world?

  • I agree with Marcus and BuzzMon. They should combine

    1) A repeal of Bush’s tax cuts
    2) Oil industry subsidies
    3) A no tolerance prosecution of mercenary contractors who have abused the system

    into the next Iraq funding bill. Even though Bush’s war is an historic waste of resources, it still must be paid for. If Bush wants to veto troop funding, fine – bring them home.

  • And Bush wants *US* to believe that *WE* and *Democratic* politicians are in danger of failing to “support the troops”?

    What, has our transition to up-is-down land become completely *complete* now?

    I’ve said it before, but I think he’s just *asking* to be impeached now…

  • I have a pretty simple suggestion to equipment shortages generally: why not convert all of the Hummer, H2 and H3 production lines to military vehicles?

    Seriously, while young men and women are dying in a place where the only American “national interest” is Oil, why are these 6 mpg vehicles still being bought and sold, and why are pretty red ones with 10-speaker JBL sound systems and seat warmers being built while National Guard units can’t resupply equipment damaged in Iraq fast enough to be fully capable for either another Iraq mission or for stateside deployment in natural disasters?

    I know this has been the most Alice-in-Wonderland, Orwelling “War Without Sacrifice,” but really- going without consumer production of Hummers seems a pretty small sacrifice to ask.

  • “Vehicles such as the Cougar and the M1117 Armored Security Vehicle have proven ability to save lives, but production started late and relatively small numbers are in use in Iraq, mostly because of money shortages, industry officials said.”

    Unit cost F-22 Raptor (designed to fight Soviet fighters over Western Europe 20 years ago): $345M (2006 dollars)

    Unit cost M-1117 Guardian ASV (designed to fight in the kind of conflicts the Army is currently engaged in): $692,397.00 (2006 dollars)

    Unit cost for Virginia class SSN (designed to sink Russian subs that barely leave port): $2.3B (2005 dollars)

    Unit cost Stryker Armored Combat Vehicle (see M-1117 entry):
    $1.9M to $2.5M, depending on variant (2005 dollars)

    There’s money, it’s just being spent stupidily, incompetently, and without any consideration for what’s best for those servicemembers currently fighitng in Iraq.

  • And let’s not forget that while junior was doing his flight suit photo-op, Saddam’s weapons were left unguarded for weeks, and they are now being used to blow up our kids (who still lack proper armor). The cost of this stupid fuckup will be in the hundreds of billions, including veteran care.

    A report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said the IED problem came about in large measure because there were not enough U.S. troops in Iraq after the 2003 invasion to secure Saddam Hussein’s ammunition caches.

    In the weeks after the invasion, vast amounts of anti-personnel and anti-tank mines, artillery shells and other explosives were stolen from unguarded Iraqi arsenals.

    “IEDs made from looted explosives have caused about half of all U.S. combat fatalities and casualties in Iraq and have killed hundreds of Iraqis,” the GAO said.

    http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.armor10jan10,0,2049191.story?coll=bal-iraq-headlines

    How much ordinance went missing? Enough…

    The Pentagon admits that a breathtaking 250,000 tons of heavy ordnance (out of 650,000 tons total) — aircraft bombs, artillery and tank shells, mines, rockets — were allowed to be looted by our undermanned army in the four-30 weeks after the invasion. That’s equivalent to 1 million 500-pound bombs. At 20 250-pound roadside mines or market closeouts a day, that’s enough for 274 years of attacks.

    http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/27950/

  • My nephew is an Army Ranger. He has had two tours over there already – I am sure he will be on his way back shortly. I wish someone from the bushlite clan would accompany him on his next tour. Fat Chance!! Bushie wants sacrifice – what the hell is he sacrificing – not sleep that is for sure.

  • Cheney likes to talk about percents, maybe we should talk about plain old cents. As in Bush won’t get one red cent until he explains what the fuck became of the money he already got.—The Answer is Orange

    Very well put! I couldn’t agree more. What happened to all the money John Q. Public has already put out for all those expenses? No more money until there is an honest accounting of the billions already spent. Even the so-called conservatives should go along with that.

  • What makes this even worse is that the money will/would most likely come from the same sources that are financing the rest of our deficit spending. Namely Saudi Arabia and China.

  • Not to piss any more people off or anything, but Froomkin has a great quote about past efforts at throwing money at the Iraq problem.

    “Glanz writes that the new plan is reminiscent of the earlier attempts at reconstruction ‘financed by $30 billion in American taxpayer money that had a marginal impact on the quality of life here, attracted ceaseless attacks on rebuilding projects and produced little but derision among Iraqis.'”

    Further, he adds that it’s a problem keeping these projects a secret so they don’t get attacked. How do you help a nation get on its feet when anything you do cannot be anything noticeable? Plus, throwing money at outdated industries with decrepit infrastructure won’t help anyone make any money, unless the US continues to subsidize Iraqi industries for decades.

  • marcus alrealius alrightus – If we have trouble paying China back, will they just ask for the deed to Iraqi oil? What a strategy! Finance someone else’s conquering of an oil-rich nation and then get the oil without firing a bullet by calling the loan due. Those inscrutable Chinese.

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