The US, The UN and Iraq

LONDON (AlertNet ) - The cost of a military operation, occupation and reconstruction in Iraq is calculated at tens of billions of dollars, but budgets for relief and rehabilitation afterwards are likely to be far more modest, in spite of the needs of 24 million civilians already impoverished by 12 years of sanctions.

The U. S. government has given funds to a small group of American NGOs, joined other countries in making donations to the U.N. appeal for preparedness and started stockpiling its own supplies, including an estimated $17 million worth of food, water, health kits and shelter materials, in four countries surrounding Iraq.

Secretary Colin L. Powell Washington, DC March 3, 2003 on Germany's RTL:

"...I hope that Germany can assist in the aftermath in helping the Iraqi people build a brighter future. "

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0303/S00054.htm

Troop Movement Could Cost $25 Billion$25 billion and that the total cost of a potential war would doubtless be much higher depending on how long hostilities lasted and how much was spent on reconstruction and other assistance.....Last week, a senior Defense Department official suggested that a war might cost $60 billion or more.
The budget office, the nonpartisan staff of economists and other specialists who advise Congress on fiscal and economic matters, said even rough projections of the total cost of war were impossible because "multiple unknowns exist about how a conflict with Iraq might actually unfold" and because long-term expenditures depend on "highly uncertain decisions about future policies."
But the budget staff said it was possible to calculate some of what it called incremental costs, the costs that might be incurred beyond the amounts budgeted for routine operations.... Over five years, the budget office calculated, the Bush tax-cut and spending proposals would worsen the deficit by a total of about $800 billion. The cumulative deficits over five years would be $362 billion if no changes were made in the law and $1.2 trillion if the Bush proposals are enacted, the analysis showed.This calculation does not take into account how the Bush proposals would affect the economy. The administration maintains that the tax cuts would make the overall economy and therefore the budget picture much stronger.The administration made no effort to calculate deficits beyond the five-year period, while the budget office extended its projections for 10 years. The Congressional staff acknowledged that such long-range predictions were unreliable. But when it tallied the numbers for 10 years, it found that the administration's tax and spending proposals would worsen the budget situation by a total of $2.7 trillion. Again, no assumptions were made about how the Bush proposals would affect the economy. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/08/politics/08BUDG.html?ei=5062&en=0fedea1601dcbd87&ex=1047704400&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position=top

As hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to lose their jobs/livelyhood, the cost of this war continues to escalate. c.i.

War with Iraq Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives

©2002 by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
All rights reserved
ISBN#: 0-87724-036-1

Rather long, but very interesting.


.......There is no evidence that
the American people are prepared for the potential scale of the operation. Gordon and
O’Hanlon provide the following estimates:30
[T]o avoid the risk of prolonged conflict among various Kurdish,
Shi’a, and Sunni groups, which could draw Iraq’s neighbors into a
regional conflict, the United States would need to lead a major international
effort to help form a stable national government. Such an
effort could require a multi-year military presence by tens of thousands
of U.S. military forces, implying annual military costs of at
least $10 billion. (In Bosnia, one-eighth the size of Iraq and with
one-sixth the population, NATO deemed it necessary to deploy over
50,000 peacekeeping troops, at a cost of some $10 billion per year;
six years later nearly 20,000 troops remain.)......


...Will other countries step up to pay the bills, as they did after the first Persian Gulf
war? Probably not. If the war is undertaken without UN sanction or broad international
support, the United States could be forced to pay the lion’s share of the costs.
Indeed, the United States may actually need to increase assistance or provide debt
relief to countries to persuade them to join a coalition. The House study suggests that
the United States might need to forgive up to $4 billion in Turkish loans to gain
Turkey’s participation in the effort. This would not be a direct economic cost but
would qualify as a “negative allied contribution” to the cost of the war.
Can these costs be covered by the United Nations? Current UN peacekeeping
efforts of $2.6 billion per year are a pittance by comparison to the needs in postwar
Iraq. In addition, payments for UN peacekeeping missions are in arrears, and little of
the half-billion dollar commitment for the reconstruction of Afghanistan has been
paid.........

...The disproportion between military destruction and civilian construction in
Afghanistan and elsewhere does not augur well for an ambitious rebuilding effort in
Iraq. Is it plausible that such an enormous civilian effort will be appropriated when
the United States today spends only $15 billion annually on foreign aid for the entire
world? The prospect of an ambitious nation-building plan that is left half-built is the
most realistic prospect....


....All the dangers that lead to ignoring or underestimating the costs of war can be
reduced by a thoughtful public discussion. Yet neither the Bush administration nor the Congress – neither the proponents nor the critics of war – has presented a serious estimate
of the costs of a war in Iraq. Neither citizens nor policymakers are able to make
informed judgments about the realistic costs and benefits of a potential conflict when
no estimate is given.
Particularly worrisome are the casual promises of postwar democratization, reconstruction,
and nation-building in Iraq. The cost of war may turn out to be low, but
the cost of a successful peace looks very steep. If American taxpayers decline to pay the
bills for ensuring the long-term health of Iraq, America would leave behind mountains
of rubble and mobs of angry people. As the world learned from the Carthaginian
peace that settled World War I, the cost of a botched peace may be even higher than
the price of a bloody war....

haven't read every entry on this thread, so perhaps someone has covered this already. newsweek mag has a very interesting article as the cover story : BUSH AND GOD www.msnbc.com/news/878520.asp i think it gives a good insight into what is driving president bush. the article is simply too long for reproduction here - i printed it out myself - i think it's a keepsake. please advise if i should have posted under a different thread. hbg

hbg, can you give us a link?

Absolutely frightening. Every day, I am more and more terrified of this maniac.

Wilso, To many in the US, they don't see GWBush as a "maniac." They support this war with Iraq. I hope we/they are ready to fund this madness that will cost the US taxpayers billions upon billions that nobody seems to be able to estimate accurately - even as hudreds of thousands continue to lose their jobs. c.i.

kara: go to www.msnbc.com/news/878520.asp - it should take you directly to the article. pls advise if a problem. hbg ....or enter "newsweek" under SEARCH and it should get you there

For c.i. - If preparations for a war were not underway, does it follow that there would be more jobs available? That's a serious question, not sharpshooting, by the way. I know of few people with a better record of predicting economic movements.

As opposed to reading what someone says about the report, why not read the report? (A 38 Page PDF file ... probably impractical for dialup users)

Following is an excerpt which likely will get little play from The Liberals, yet it is key to the report:


First, any estimate of "The Cost of The War" at this point would be at best an academic exercize. A short war will cost less than a long war. No war now would necessitate a vastly more expensive war later. The issue is not the cost of the war, the issue is the necessity of bringing Saddam to the justice reqired by his 12+ years of intransigence and defiance of World Opinion and International Law.


Also ignored is the impact the billions of reconstruction dollars, which will primarily benefit US and British Firms, will have on the overall economy.



timber.

roger, Nothing is for certain, but I believe most financial pundits will agree that without the threat of this war with Iraq, the consumer confidence would be much higher. It's the unknowns about the economic impact of this war that is keeping consumers from spending - not knowing whether they'll have a job and/or medical insurance, and our stock market volatile. More than 300,000 people lost jobs last month. I think there's a direct corallary between our worsening economy and this potential war in Iraq. As for the government's esimates for the cost of this war, I have no faith in them. As timber stated, "First, any estimate of "The Cost of The War" at this point would be at best an academic exercize." Our government is still not able to decide how many troops it will take for how long after 'winning' this war. Those can become big if's. c.i.

Thanks, c.i.

It's pretty big news in the papers here but I couldn't easily find it back in the US papers - is it not reported so much there?

Evidence against Iraq proven false

"The American and British assertions that Iraq tried to revive its nuclear arms program, turn out to be based on forged documents. It concerns forged contracts for the sale of uranium by Niger to Iraq.

Washington and London were embarassed with that statement, yesterday in the UN Security Council, as Mohammed el-Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), revealed the existence of the forgery.

The American government will be unpleasantly affected by his statement, since they are making an ultimate effort to persuade the Security Council of Iraq's attempts to make a nuclear bomb. Iraq was said to have bought uranium, fuel for a nuclear weapon, in Niger with that purpose. The Brits, too, used that argument to convince a majority in the Security Council of Saddam's bad intentions. The big question is now who committed the forgery. El-Baradei didn't say anything about that.

According to el-Baradei the UN inspectors have also not found any other evidence that Iraq wants to revive its nuclear programme. [..]

http://www.parool.nl/1047109718842.html

Interesting link:

How Britain could have avoided war.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,10291,906594,00.html

~

Nimh -- There has been mounting evidence that Powell's statements in the UN have been largely based on lies of one kind or another -- some sources more colorful than others! I was interested when I caught about 10 minutes of a Fox TV (rightwing and worse) discussion in which it was asserted that Blix had lied continually and had a political agenda. I don't have TV because it's clear to me that mainstream broadcast media in the US are at the very best highly unreliable. More shocking than that is that most Americans don't seem to care. Truth doesn't matter much. As long as the news is presented in an entertaining fashion and is favorable to America, the rest is unimportant. Like, uh, you know, uh, who cares?! We strongly believe that whoever shouts the loudest is right!

The New York Times had a full transcript of the el Baradei report but how many people read the full transcript?

Letter to the New York Times 3/8: "At no point during the Vietnam years was I as depressed about this country as I am now. I was drafted and served in Vietnam."

From the lead NYTimes editorial 3/9From the NYTimes op-ed page 3/9The war can be waged only as a last resort, with all nonviolent options exhausted.The war's weapons must discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. Extensive aerial bombardment, even with precise accuracy, inevitably results in "collateral damage." Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf, has expressed concern about many of the military targets being near hospitals, schools, mosques and private homes.
Its violence must be proportional to the injury we have suffered. Despite Saddam Hussein's other serious crimes, American efforts to tie Iraq to the 9/11 terrorist attacks have been unconvincing.
The attackers must have legitimate authority sanctioned by the society they profess to represent. The unanimous vote of approval in the Security Council to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction can still be honored, but our announced goals are now to achieve regime change and to establish a Pax Americana in the region, perhaps occupying the ethnically divided country for as long as a decade. For these objectives, we do not have international authority. Other members of the Security Council have so far resisted the enormous economic and political influence that is being exerted from Washington, and we are faced with the possibility of either a failure to get the necessary votes or else a veto from Russia, France and China. Although Turkey may still be enticed into helping us by enormous financial rewards and partial future control of the Kurds and oil in northern Iraq, its democratic Parliament has at least added its voice to the worldwide expressions of concern.
The peace it establishes must be a clear improvement over what exists. The Xanax Cowboy By MAUREEN DOWDFire, Ready, Aim By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
I went to President Bush's White House news conference on Thursday to see how he was wrestling with the momentous issue of Iraq. One line he uttered captured all the things that are troubling me about his approach. It was when he said: "When it comes to our security, we really don't need anybody's permission."
The first thing that bothered me was the phrase, "When it comes to our security . . ." Fact: The invasion of Iraq today is not vital to American security. Saddam Hussein has neither the intention nor the capability to threaten America, and is easily deterrable if he did... http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html


American Prospect's online commentator allows as how "he was reminded of this late last night while watching a portion of a re-run of the president's remarks. We were particularly struck by the look of the president's face as he walked toward the podium. He looked like a man who was about to enter an oral exam he hadn't prepped for. Our first thought was that the hallway down which he walked seemed entirely too long and that whoever set the speech up needed a dressing-down. Rather than bounding forward in a few short steps, he looked like someone about to walk a plank -- a man steeling himself in his own mind against what comes next. But it wasn't the fault of the hallway, it turned out; it was the president himself. His words rang flat and hollow, and in his eyes you could see the seeds of fear and doubt. Or perhaps it was a trick of the light and some unusual camera angles. Indeed, one camera cut away from the familiar visual box in which the president, looking presidential, delivered his remarks, to a side shot of the man. Suddenly, we could see the president from the side, nearly from behind, a small American man grasping a podium before a crowd of his seated, unconvinced, countrymen, and behind him, the vast empty space of an ornately decorated room.
Last night's speech was utterly unmemorable. If it is recalled at all in future years, it will be as a Wizard of Oz moment where the curtain was pulled back and the all-powerful figure toward whom people have looked for guidance was revealed to be just another middle-aged man in a suit, standing forlornly in a large and empty room.
No wonder Andrew Sullivan called the briefing "a mistake." But where Sullivan blamed Bush's poor performance on the stress of the impending war, Tapped can think of another reason our president has begun to look defeated, exhausted and less than certain of his own actions. Yesterday, Quinnipiac College released the first poll since Bush was elected showing that if the next presidential election were held now, Bush would lose. Only 44 percent of those polled supported Bush, compared to 48 percent who said they'd prefer an as-yet-undetermined Democratic candidate." http://www.prospect.org/weblog/

Tartarin thanks for posting these for us. Jimmy Carter is correct. People seem to forget that prior to being in politics he was a full Commander in the US Navy in the nuclear submarine program and was commander of a boomer. He know something about war.

Quite right, Joanne! Also, in Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, we have two men who are quite public about their religious faith. The first honors his faith by his actions, the second does not.