Iraq War Has Cost Average U.S. Household At Least $3,000

by Jim Lobe

(IPS) WASHINGTON -- Unless you own a lot of stock in Halliburton or other big defense, security, or construction companies, chances are the Iraq war has turned out to be a pretty bad investment, both in human lives and taxpayer dollars, according to a new assessment by the progressive Washington-based think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

In what it claims is the first comprehensive accounting of the costs of the war on the U.S., Iraq, and much of the rest of the world, IPS concludes that not only have U.S. taxpayers paid a "very high price for the war," they have also become "less secure at home and in the world."

Citing a number of recent studies, the report, 'Paying the Price: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War,' also notes that the $151.1 billion that will have been spent through this fiscal year could have paid for comprehensive health care for 82 million U.S. children or the salaries of nearly three million elementary school teachers. According to one study cited in the 54-page report, the war and occupation will cost the average U.S. household at least $3,415 through the end of this year.

If spent on international programs, the same sum could have cut world hunger in half and covered HIV/AIDS medicine, childhood immunization, and clean water and sanitation needs of all developing countries for more than two years.

It also comes amid a number of other negative assessments, including by Bremer himself, as well as by a series of public-opinion surveys in Iraq about the occupation's achievements, both for the U.S. and Iraqis.

According to one mid-May poll that was commissioned for the CPA, more than 80 percent of Iraqis say they have no confidence in the occupation authorities, and 55 percent said they would feel safer if coalition forces left the country.

While the financial costs of the war are enormous, according to the report, the costs in blood, both for U.S. citizens and Iraqis, are by no means insignificant.

More than 850 U.S. troops have been killed since the start of the war on March 19, 2003, just over 700 of them since President George W. Bush declared the end of major hostilities on May 1, 2003, making the post-combat phase of the war by far the bloodiest U.S. engagement since the Indochina conflict.

In addition more than 5,134 troops were wounded through June 16, 4,593 of them since the official end of combat. Nearly two-thirds of the wounded, according to the report, received injuries serious enough to prevent them from returning to duty.

But despite precision bombing and other weapons and tactics designed to reduce "collateral damage," the toll among Iraqis has been far higher, according to the report whose principal author was Phyllis Bennis, IPS's main Middle East analyst.

As of June 16, IPS estimates that between 9,436 and 11,317 civilians have been killed as a direct result of the U.S. invasion and ensuing occupation, while an estimated 40,000 Iraqis have been injured. In addition, during "major combat" operations both during the invasion and after May 1, 2003, the report estimates that between 4,895 and 6,370 Iraqi soldiers and insurgents had been killed as of mid-June.

Moreover, these figures do not take account of the long-run health impacts of the estimated 1,100 to 2,200 tonnes of ordnance made from depleted uranium (DU), which was expended during the pre-invasion March 2003 bombing campaign. Many scientists blamed DU for illnesses among U.S. soldiers in the first Gulf War and a seven-fold increase in child birth defects in southern Iraq since 1991.

Nor do the statistics account for the psychological impact of both the war and the skyrocketing violence, including murders, rapes, and kidnapping, that followed the invasion and that now keeps many Iraqi children from attending school and requires prudent women to stay off the streets at night. Violent deaths, according to the report, rose from an average of 14 per month in 2002 to 357 per month in 2003.

Despite promises by the Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) to rebuild and expand Iraq's infrastructure, the country is still not producing as much electricity or as much oil on a sustained basis as it was just before the war, according to the report. Its authors blame a combination of sabotage by insurgents and incompetence and profiteering by big U.S. companies like Halliburton that captured virtually all of the reconstruction contracts despite the much greater experience of Iraqi firms.

Due to security concerns, school attendance is reportedly running below pre-war levels, while Iraq's hospitals and health systems have been overwhelmed by a combination of lack of supplies and unprecedented number of casuaties created by the ongoing violence.

"We have played a large part in destroying this country," said Bennis, who recalled the first Gulf War and the 13 years of U.S.-backed UN sanctions and bombing that had already weakened much of Iraq's infrastructure before the latest war.

Washington's invasion and occupation have also exacted other costs for which the United States may have to pay for a very long time, according to the report, which cited a recent assessment by the conservative International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) that the Iraq war has greatly increased recruitment by al Qaeda and similar radical groups. The London-based think tank estimated al Qaeda's membership at 18,000 with 1,000 active in Iraq..

That assessment also echoes the conclusion of a new book by a top active-duty Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer to be released next week that "there is nothing that al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq." The author, "Anonymous," until recently headed the CIA efforts to track down bin Laden and is considered an expert on al Qaeda. It is extremely unusual for the CIA to allow a current operative to publish such a book.

Washington has also dealt a serious blow to its own prestige and credibility in the larger world, as well as in Arab and Islamic nations, according to the report, which cites recent surveys of public opinion in more than two dozen countries, including the U.S.'s closest European allies; the weakening of the United Nations and international law resulting from both the precedent created by going to war unilaterally and in the allegedly abusive treatment of detainees in both Afghanistan and Iraq; and the alienation of the Iraqi public.

"Rather than winning hearts, U.S. actions have destroyed lives," said Anas Shallal, an Iraqi-American who founded the Mesopotamia Cultural Society and contributed to the report.