Next month America will have been in Iraq for five years – longer than it spent in either world war. Daily military operations (not counting, for example, future care of wounded) have already cost more than 12 years in Vietnam, and twice as much as the Korean war. America is spending $16 billion a month on running costs alone (ie on top of the regular expenses of the Department of Defence) in Iraq and Afghanistan; that is the entire annual budget of the UN.
George Bush on the cost of the Iraq war: “We don’t go to war on the calculations of green eye-shaded accountants or economists.”
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/28/iraq.afghanistan:
$16 billion
The amount the US spends on the monthly running costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – on top of regular defence spending
$138
The amount paid by every US household every month towards the current operating costs of the war
$19.3 billion
The amount Halliburton has received in single-source contracts for work in Iraq
$25 billion
The annual cost to the US of the rising price of oil, itself a consequence of the war
$3 trillion
A conservative estimate of the true cost – to America alone – of Bush’s Iraq adventure. The rest of the world, including Britain, will shoulder about the same amount again
$5 billion
Cost of 10 days’ fighting in Iraq
$1 trillion
The interest America will have paid by 2017 on the money borrowed to finance the war
3%
The average drop in income of 13 African countries – a direct result of the rise in oil prices. This drop has more than offset the recent increase in foreign aid to Africa