Iraq war costs more per month than Vietnam – report

By Alan Elsner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. war in Iraq now costs more
per month than the average monthly cost of military operations
in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, according to a report issued
on Wednesday.

The report, entitled “The Iraq Quagmire” from the Institute
for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus, both liberal,
anti-war organizations, put the cost of current operations in
Iraq at $5.6 billion per month. This breaks down to almost $186
million a day.

“By comparison, the average cost of U.S. operations in
Vietnam over the eight-year war was $5.1 billion per month,
adjusting for inflation,” it said.

As a proportion of gross domestic product, the Vietnam War
was more significant, costing 12 percent of annual GDP,
compared to 2 percent for the Iraq War. However, economists
said the Iraq war is being financed with deficit spending and
may nearly double the projected federal budget deficit over the
next 10 years.

The U.S. Congress has approved four spending bills for Iraq
so far with funds totaling $204.4 billion and is expected soon
to authorize a further $45.3 billion.

“Broken down per person in the United States, the cost so
far is $727, making the Iraq War the most expensive military
effort in the past 60 years,” wrote authors Phyllis Bennis and
Erik Leaver.

As public support for the war drops, more politicians,
including some Republicans, have begun to compare it to
Vietnam.

The latest was Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, who
received two Purple Hearts and other military honors for his
service in Vietnam. He said earlier this month that the United
States was “locked into a bogged-down problem, not dissimilar
to where we were in Vietnam.”

The total cost of the Vietnam War in current dollars was
around $600 billion and there are some experts who believe the
Iraq War will eventually surpass that total.

For instance, the Congressional Budget Office estimated
this year that if the United States managed to reduce its troop
deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan to 50,000 by 2010, the cost
over the next decade would be an additional $393 billion, which
when added to the dollars already spent would exceed the
Vietnam total.

While there are far fewer troops in Iraq than there were in
Vietnam at the height of that conflict, the weapons they use
are more expensive and they are paid more.

The report also highlighted the human costs of the war: the
deaths of an estimated 23,000-27,000 Iraqi civilians and more
than 2,000 U.S. military personnel and civilian contractors;
the social costs of domestic programs slashed to meet the
budget shortfall; the loss of income to reservists and National
Guard troops who spend long periods away from their careers and
businesses as well as the anticipated costs of treating
returning troops for mental health conditions as a result of
their service.