The Hidden Costs of War

The Hidden Costs of War
by Jean Carnahan

Remember those halcyon days of the new century, when it was estimated that we could win the Iraq War for a paltry $50 billion and have money left over for champagne and roses to celebrate the victory?

Ahh . . . we were so young and foolish . . . so easily wooed into thinking we could wage war fast, easily, and on the cheap.  When one Bush economic advisor opined that the war might run as high as $200 billion, he was promptly sent packing for such pessimistic thinking. 

As with political polls, we expected a margin of error in predicting the price of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.  But, budget estimates not only missed the target, they didn’t even hit the barn.  With a price tag of $300 million a day, we now have a $l.6 trillion war on our hands with no end in sight.

Now, a trillion dollars is a tidy sum—a number that even Congress finds difficult to comprehend.  In the U.S. Senate, I sat on committees where there were occasional moments of “monetary confusion.”  When discussing large appropriations, someone was sure to blurt out, “Hold on, are we talking millions, now, or billions?”

If we get confused with such staggering sums, try to imagine a mindboggling trillion dollars!  Simply put, it is a “1” followed by twelve zeroes.  If you spent one dollar a second, it would take you 31,700 years to run through it all.

David Leonhardt, a New York Times writer, noted that for a trillion dollars we could double cancer research funding, treat every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged, and immunize millions of children around the world.  All this for the next decade, plus fund the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and have money to spare for efforts in such places as New Orleans, Afghanistan, and Darfur.   

But, the budget numbers—though staggering—still mask the true cost of a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 American soldiers.   Sadly, the Iraq War has a number of hidden, long-range expenses.  If all our military men and women came home today, there would still be thousands of injured troops, who will require care and compensation for years to come. 

Yes, a trillion may be unfathomable, but so is the magnitude of the misery still to be endured by those torn in body and spirit.  This long and grim chapter in our nation’s history will eventually end, but our response to those who have borne the battle will have only just begun.