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May 23, 2003

How Much Did the Iraq War Cost?

The answer is, under 1 billion dollars.

War Costs: How Much? Well, How High Can You Count?

A look at the numbers from the war

May 26 issue – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has ordered the U.S. military to collaborate on a “lessons learned” study of the Iraq war. That will take months, but the air commander, Lt. Gen. Michael Moseley, has had a team from his “analysis and assessments” staff compile some raw numbers. Some highlights of the 16-page report:

423,998 U.S. MILITARY personnel were deployed; other Coalition forces sent an additional 42,987 troops. The total is roughly equivalent to the population of Albuquerque, N.M. The war lasted 720 hours. The allies flew more than 41,400 sorties. That consumed 18,622 tons of fuel, enough to keep a Boeing 737-300 airliner aloft for about 12 years. The Coalition flew 1,801 aircraft-all but 138 were American. The Iraqis were showered with 31,800,000 leaflets bearing 81 different messages. End to end, the leaflets would have made 120,454 rolls of toilet paper. Coalition forces lost 20 aircraft, but only 7as a result of enemy fire. Search-and-rescue teams flew 55 missions and saved 73 people. 80 aircraft were flown to gather intelligence; they took 42,000 pictures of the battlefield, transmitted 3,200 hours of video and eavesdropped on 2,400 hours of Iraqi communications. Known costs: $917,744,361.55 – an amount equivalent to 46 minutes, 10.5 seconds- worth of total U.S. economic output in 2001.

– John Barry

$918 million. Despite the article’s rabble-rousing title, this just isn’t that significant a cost to the U.S. As Senator Everett Dirksen said, “A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money.”

Congress blows billions every year just by not controlling costs better.

It seems to me that what Washington needs big-time is a heavy-duty cost-management database that will track all Federal spending and put the details at the fingertips of anybody with a computer.

Update: 6/13/03 . The actual cost appears to be much higher than was stated in this article.