Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: Iraq, Afghanistan War Costs Top Vietnam

Iraq, Afghanistan War Costs Top Vietnam 
 
by Aaron Glantz 
Congress' approval Wednesday of $70 billion more for the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan mean the twin conflicts are now more costly to American
taxpayers than the war in Vietnam.
According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and
Non-Proliferation, Congress has now approved nearly $700 billion for the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Using inflation-adjusted dollars, the total cost of those wars has now
surpassed the total cost of the Vietnam war (which ran to $670 billion),"
the group's Travis Sharp told OneWorld. "It's also more than seven times
larger than the Persian Gulf War ($94 billion) and more than twice the
cost of the Korean war ($295 billion)."
As a result of Wednesday's vote, Sharp said, the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan will become the second costliest conflict in American history,
trailing only World War II.
"But that was a time when 12 million Americans served, as compared with
1.42 million active duty soldiers and just over one million National Guard
and reservists today," Sharp added.
Much of the money approved by Congress will go to buy expensive new
military equipment: $922 million is earmarked for purchase or alteration
of 41 new Blackhawk, Apache, and Chinook Helicopters; $813 million will be
spent on new Bradley Fighting Vehicles; $455 million for new Humvees; $427
million on new Heavy Tactical Vehicles; and $425 million for M1 Abrams
Tanks.
"I think what you're seeing from Democrats is a resignation to the fact
that they're going to have to wait for the Bush Administration to leave
office before they see any serious change in the country's war policy,"
Sharp said. "The Democrats just want to play out the clock on this one."
But "playing out the clock" comes with a severe cost for essential
services at home.
Even before the new $70 billion dollars was approved Wednesday, the
Massachusetts-based National Priorities Project had estimated that the
average American household has already spent $4,100 on the Iraq war.
This year alone, US taxpayers spent $137.6 billion on the Iraq war. For
the same amount of money, the government could have provided more than 39
million people with health care, built one million units of affordable
housing, or outfitted 142 million homes with renewable electricity sources.
"We want to help people comprehend the magnitude of these numbers," said
the group's Pamela Schwartz. "Surely, ultimately, we'd hope that our
priorities would shift so that significantly less money is going to war
with more money going to programs like heath care, Headstart, and
education."
"We want to help people understand that choices are being made here," she
added.
To that end, the National Priorities Project has set up a web-site,
Costofwar.com, where taxpayers can learn what the cost of the Iraq war has
meant to their community. Visitors to the website can search by state,
city, or congressional district and find out how much money the Iraq war
has taken out of their community and where the money could have gone
instead.
For example, taxpayers in Chicago have spent $4.8 billion on the war in
Iraq – money that could have been used to build 567 new elementary schools
or build 35,000 units of affordable housing.
In smaller places like George W. Bush's hometown of Crawford, Texas, war
spending has also had a strong impact. Crawford's taxpayers have spent
$1.3 million on the war in Iraq – money that could have been used to
provide 180 full scholarships for university students, or hire 30
additional police and sheriff's deputies.
"The Democrats were elected last year with a certain set of priorities,
but President Bush drew a line in the sand," Schwartz told OneWorld.
"Rather than drawing their own line, Democrats respected Bush's line. They
met President Bush's spending limits on domestic programs and gave him a
blank check for the Iraq war. That's the choice they made."
 
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