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Vendaval -> "Is Iraq War the cheapest or costliest?" (3/20/2007 2:38:47 AM)
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"Is Iraq War the cheapest or costliest?"
By MATT CRENSON, AP National Writer
Fri Mar 16, 9:33 PM ET
" But with projections that the costs of Social Security and especially Medicare are about to go through the roof — not to mention the possibility of future national security crises — the war is contributing to a fiscal problem that is expected to become increasingly apparent over the course of the next decade.
And the war's costs will continue to accrue long after the last U.S. troops finally leave Iraq. A recent study by Linda Bilmes of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government put the total cost of providing medical care and disability benefits to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan at $350 billion to $700 billion.
That huge cost is partly a result of the number and type of casualties the Iraq war has produced. Troops in Iraq have a much better chance of surviving serious injuries than those wounded in previous wars; there have been 16 troops wounded there for every fatality, compared to 2.6 injuries per death in Vietnam and 2.8 in Korea.
"While it is welcome news and a credit to military medicine that more soldiers are surviving grievous wounds, the existence of so many veterans, with such a high level of injuries, is yet another aspect of this war for which the Pentagon and the administration failed to plan, prepare and budget," Bilmes wrote in a January working paper.
In a study co-authored with Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Bilmes estimated that the real price of the Iraq war, when you add up spending to date, future costs and economic impacts such as elevated oil prices, is well over $2 trillion. "
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070317/ap_on_go_ot/iraq_war_cost;_ylt=AruGWJgg__7l4YVRFQC5M5gNJ_wE
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