$12 Billion a month gets you one heck of a war, these days

Remember the Iraq war? Based on news headlines, you'd think Americans (or at least the U.S. media) has forgotten we're at war.

On top of the fact young Americans are dying and being wounded and the fact many feel the war hasn't made us more safe, there's this: This $%*&@ war is #*&%!+ expensive.

Stop for a moment to consider that our country is facing some of the worst economic news in decades, and then consider this: The war in Iraq is costing the United States $12 billion per month. The way the Bush administration has blundered in the planning and execution of this war will create debts and economic hardships for an entire generation or longer.

At the start of the US-led invasion, Larry Lindsey, then White House economic adviser, estimated that the war in Iraq could cost as much as $200bn. Because of this claim, he was fired from the job by the incredibly arrogant and ignorant Donald Rumsfelt, who had his own estimate of $50 to $60 billion. (I wonder if Donald has ever apologized to Mr. Lindsey?)

The total cost to date is not as easy to estimate as you'd think. The most conservative estimate of the war's cost comes from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, whose estimate through September 30th is $413bn.

But in a new book by Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winning economist, and Linda Bilmes, a senior official during the Clinton presidency, a much higher number is calculated. Their estimate is higher because it includes the future cost of caring for so many injured soldiers, interest paid on the war debt, macroeconomic costs from higher oil prices, and social costs not paid by the government, including the loss of productive capacity of those killed or wounded and quality of life impairments.

Care to guess what their estimate is of the total cost to the U.S. for the unnecessary war in Iraq? Here's a hint: The name of their book is The Three Trillion Dollar War.

Here are two small facts to put this horrible debacle into perspective:

• The US federal government spent $108m last year on research into autism, a condition affecting one in 150 children. We spend that in 4½ hours in Iraq.
  
  
• The Joint Economic Committee of Congress says the war has so far cost a US family of four $16,900, a bill that could rise to $37,000 by 2017.

Hey, don't blame me. I didn't vote for the Busy/Cheney/Rumsfield disaster!

You can read more about the cost of the war on FT.com.