Cost of War

You’d think that somebody would know how much all the various Bush wars are costing the citizens of America. But here’s yesterday’s testimony to Congress by the Congressional Budget Office: Testimony on Issues in Estimating the Cost of Operations in Iraq and the War on Terrorism

It turns out that no one really has an accurate handle on the cost because the Department of Defence won’t tell anyone what they spend their money on. Not in any detail at least. For instance the recent “supplementary request” which was for $68 billion had little detail: the request for $33 billion for maintenance took up all of five pages. Or how about this: during 2005 $21 billion out of the total $84 billion requested for the war on terrorism was spent on a category called “other”.

The CBO complains that it doesn’t get accurate or timely information, so it cannot keep Congress properly briefed on expenditures. Yet Congress keeps on spending. It never says no. It never asks hard questions. It just keeps on allowing the Pentagon to spend whatever it wants, however it wants.

That’s not oversight. That’s capitulation. That’s running scared of the military complex spending machine. And it allows suspicions of corruption to creep into debate over whether we’re getting our money’s worth.

It’s time for someone to get serious and call the Pentagon to account. What does it spend its money on? and just how much is Bush’s war costing us?