From Bob Herbert, NYT Op-Ed columnist comes George Bush’s Trillion-Dollar War – New York Times. I’ve written a little here on the site about the unforeseen and ignored consequences of using private force, Herbert quotes from a report by Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University, and Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. (Their report can be found here.)

Some exerpts from Herbert’s column:

George
W. Bush’s war in Iraq was never supposed to be particularly expensive.
Administration types tossed out numbers like $50 billion and $60
billion. When Lawrence Lindsey, the president’s chief economic adviser,
said the war was likely to cost $100 billion to $200 billion, he was
fired….

"Even taking a conservative approach and assuming all U.S. troops
return by 2010, we believe the true costs exceed a trillion dollars,"
the authors say.

These costs, the study says, "include disability payments to
veterans over the course of their lifetimes, the cost of replacing
military equipment and munitions, which are being consumed at a
faster-than-normal rate, the cost of medical treatment for returning
Iraqi war veterans, particularly the more than 7,000 [service members]
with brain, spinal, amputation and other serious injuries, and the cost
of transporting returning troops back to their home bases."
 
The study also notes that Defense Department expenditures that were not
directly appropriated for Iraq have grown by more than 5 percent since
the war began. But a portion of that increase has been spent "on
support for the war in Iraq, including significantly higher recruitment
costs, such as nearly doubling the number of recruiters, paying
recruitment bonuses of up to $40,000 for new enlistees and paying
special bonuses and other benefits, up to $150,000 for current Special
Forces troops that re-enlist."
 
"Another cost to the government," the study says, "is the interest on the money that it has borrowed to finance the war."

The report considers the impact of raised oil prices on the economy (hmmm… ExxonMobil?).

In an interview, Mr. Stiglitz said that about $560 billion, which
is a little more than half of the study’s conservative estimate of the
cost of the war, would have been enough to "fix" Social Security for
the next 75 years. If one were thinking in terms of promoting democracy
in the Middle East, he said, the money being spent on the war would
have been enough to finance a "mega-mega-mega-Marshall Plan," which
would have been "so much more" effective than the invasion of Iraq.

Considering the amount of money spent in Iraq and the amount of goodwill, respect, and international leverage we’ve lost (including the distraction from what Bruce Hoffman has said is likely the greatest strategic blunder in a generation: failing to deal effectively with Iran and North Korea), might the massive amount of money be better spent on a massive Marshall-esque Plan? Heck, perhaps even giving each person in Iraq a wad of cash might have been better because then they would have had some money to buy food and (re)open a business.

In an interview, Mr. Stiglitz said that about $560 billion, which is a
little more than half of the study’s conservative estimate of the cost
of the war, would have been enough to "fix" Social Security for the
next 75 years. If one were thinking in terms of promoting democracy in
the Middle East, he said, the money being spent on the war would have
been enough to finance a "mega-mega-mega-Marshall Plan," which would
have been "so much more" effective than the invasion of Iraq.

The closing paragraphs expand on this theme:

If we spent even a small fraction of [half the sum spent on the war] on education and research, it is likely our economy would be in a far stronger position. If some of the money spent on research were devoted to alternative energy technologies, or to providing further incentivies for conservation, we would be less dependent on oil, and thereby more secure; and the lower prices of oil that would result would have obvious implications for the financing of some of the current threats to Aermcia’s security. While we may not know what causes terrorism, clearly the desperation and despair that comes from the poverty that is rife in so much of the Third World has the potential of providing a fertile feeding ground. For sums less than the direct expenditures on the war, we could have fulfilled our commitment to provide 0.7% of our GDP to help developing countries — money that could have made an enormous different, for the better, to the well being of billions today living in poverty.

Timely and accurate analysis that is reflected in the threat of "ungoverned spaces" discussed in the National Security Strategy of 2006 (available here) and in Thomas Friedman’s "A New Grip on ‘Reality’", a review of Senator Lugar’s speech as the Brookings Institute critiquing Cheney and Big Oil (download the speech here). Key points from Lugar’s speech:

My message is that the balance of realism has passed from those who argue on behalf of oil and a laissez-faire energy policy that relies on market evolution, to those who recognize that in the absence of a major reorientation in the way we get our energy, life in America is going to be much more difficult in the coming decades. … No one who is honestly assessing the decline of American leverage around the world due to our energy dependence can fail to see that energy is the albatross of U.S. national security.

We have entered a different energy era that requires a much different response than in past decades. What is needed is an urgent national campaign led by a succession of presidents and Congresses who will ensure that American ingenuity and resources are fully committed to this problem.

Lugar identified six threats:

First, as we have seen, oil supplies are vulnerable to natural disasters, wars, and terrorist attacks that can disrupt the lifeblood of the international economy. The entire nation felt the spike in prices caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year. But these shocks, which helped send the price of oil to $70 a barrel, were minor compared to what would occur if major oil processing facilities in Saudi Arabia were sabotaged….

The demand for energy from these industrializing giants is creating unprecedented
competition for oil and natural gas. Americans paid 17 percent more for energy in 2005 than in the previous year. That increase accounted for 40 percent of the rise in the consumer price index. Last November, we spent more than $24 billion on oil imports, accounting for more than a third of our trade deficit. To meet world oil demand, the International Energy Agency estimates a need for $17 trillion in investment, with the bulk going to the Middle East….

Third, the use of energy as an overt weapon by producing nations is not a theoretical threat of the future; it is happening now… We are used to thinking in terms of conventional warfare between nations, but energy is becoming the weapon of choice for those who possess it. It may seem to be a less lethal weapon than military forces, but a natural gas shutdown to Ukraine in the middle of winter could cause death and economic loss on the scale of a military attack. Moreover, in such circumstances, nations would become desperate, increasing the chances of armed conflict and terrorism. The use of energy as a weapon might require NATO to review what alliance obligations would be in such cases.

Fourth, even when energy is not used overtly as a weapon, energy imbalances are allowing regimes in countries that are rich in oil and natural gas to avoid democratic reforms and insulate themselves from international pressure and the aspirations of their own people….

Beyond the internal costs to these nations, we should recognize that we are transferring
hundreds of billions of dollars each year to some of the least accountable regimes in the world. Some are using this money to invest abroad in terrorism, instability, or demagogic appeals to populism.

At a time when the international community is attempting to persuade Iran to live up to its non-proliferation obligations, our economic leverage on that country has declined due to its burgeoning oil revenues. If one tracks the arc of Iran’s behavior over the last decade, its suppression of dissent, its support for terrorists, and its conflict with the West have increased in conjunction with its oil revenues, which soared by 30 percent in 2005…

Fifth, the threat of climate change has been made worse by inefficient and unclean use of nonrenewable energy. In the long run this could bring drought, famine, disease, and mass migration, all of which could lead to conflict and instability….

Sixth, our efforts to stem terrorist recruitment and prevent terrorist cells and training grounds in the developing world are being undercut by the high costs of energy. The economic impact of high oil prices is far more burdensome in developing countries than in the developed world. Generally, developing countries are more dependent on imported oil, their industries are more energy intensive, and they use energy less efficiently….

The nature of our security dilemma is more than the one trillion dollars we’ll spend on this "Long War" the President has recently passed to the next President (and possibly the President after that). The true cost of this war is far greater due to mismanagement and myopia. The threat to our security, economic, physical, and Constitutional, has been amplified by this President, not reduced.