War Costs Reach Deeper Into Your Wallet

War Costs Reach Deeper Into Your Wallet
The Congressional Research Service has just sent to Congress its latest update of the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11,” dated July 16, 2007. Important elements of the new report include the following:

Assuming Congress’ approval of President George W. Bush’s request for war costs for the upcoming fiscal year 2008 (a request of $141.7 billion), total appropriations related to the wars would reach $758 billion, including $567 billion for Iraq, $157 billion for Afghanistan, $29 billion for other security operations in the US and elsewhere, and $5 billion which can be attributed to “unknown” due to the Defense Department’s inability to track its own money. (See second to last paragraph in the report’s “Summary.”)

Counting all war appropriations to date, including those for not just DOD but also the State Department and the VA, costs per month have risen from about $12 billion in FY 2006 to about $14.4 billion in FY 2007. (See p. 3)

2007 costs total $173 billion. Of that amount, $135.2 billion is for Iraq, and $36.9 billion is for Afghanistan.

In addition to the extra costs of the “surge” of troops in Iraq, the increase in costs from 2006 to 2007 is explained by a dramatic increase in procurement spending to replace warn out equipment and to move acquisition costs for routine modernization (such as for V-22s and C-17s) from the regular annual budget to the separate budget for the war. (See p. 18-19)

~snip~

Cost per deployed troop has increased from $320,000 for each troop in 2003 to $390,000 for each in 2006. (See p. 24)


Rest of article at: http://www.defensetech.org/archives/cat_money_money_money.html


uhc comment: At the above link, you can also read about DoD budget changes, airplane gas, the Navy's $4,000,000,000 phone bill, the Marines new leaky amphibious vehicle that breaks down 'about an average of once every 4 1/2 hours', the giant blimp that got canned and all kinds of goodies.