September 2002: White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey has the
audacity to speculate that a war in Iraq might cost $100-200 billion. White House OMB Director Mitch Daniels
disagrees, calling this "the upper end of a hypothetical". Lawrence Lindsey is asked to resign two months later.
January 2003: White House downplays reports of an estimated $50 billion to $60 billion price tag for a war with Iraq.
March 2003: Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz fend off demands by Congress for a budget estimate: "Wolfowitz deflected questions from lawmakers trying to pin down firm numbers for potential costs of a war and postwar efforts, saying, "I think it's necessary to preserve some ambiguity of exactly where the numbers are."
Ambiguity certainly aided the cause. And just today,
this is reported:
House and Senate negotiators are expected to act soon to sort out differences between their versions of the $81 billion spending bill. Both versions would push the total cost of combat and reconstruction past $300 billion since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The $300B figure apparently includes Afghanistan, so ambiguity continues to aid their cause. Mother Jones compiled this list in September 2003 of "the administration's hemming and hawing on the costs of war, occupation and reconstruction":
* '$100 billion to $200 billion'
Last September, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey let slip that a war in Iraq might cost anywhere between $100 billion and $200 billion. The White House rushed to downplay his comments. Two days later, the White House budget boss, Mitch Daniels, dismissed Lindsey's prediction as "very, very high", and three months after that, Lindsey was out of a job. It was the last time, until Sept 7, that any White House official offered a hard estimate of the war's ultimate cost.
* 'The cost of one bullet'
At a press conference in October 2002, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer claimed that the president had "made no decisions" whether to go to war and therefore had no idea how much a war might cost. But, he quipped, the price of removing Saddam Hussein could be as low as "[t]he cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves."
* '$50 billion to $60 billion' -- maybe
In December 2002, Daniels ventured that a war might cost between $50 billion and $60 billion. He added, "This is nothing more than prudent contingency planning. At this point there is no war." A day later, an Office of Management and Budget spokesman emphasized that Daniels wasn't making a prediction: "He said it could -- could -- be $60 billion."
* 'Highly uncertain'
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told the House Budget Committee in February of this year: "The same rigorous planning and tough decision-making used in our budget preparation are being applied to our execution of the war on terrorism and to preparations for a possible war in Iraq.... Still, war is fraught with uncertainty and that makes all predictions of future war costs highly uncertain."
* 'We'll let you know'
As tensions mounted in early March, Bush deflected reporters' questions about war costs. "In terms of the dollar amount, well, we'll let you know here pretty soon," he said.
* 'Not knowable'
As US troops approached Baghdad in late March, Donald Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon: "I notice today everyone was saying, 'Oh my goodness, they did know what the war was going to cost.' And I have said repeatedly we don't know what the war is going to cost, and the truth is, we don't know what the war is going to cost. You can't know it, it's not knowable." Two days later, he went before Congress to ask for $62 billion in supplemental spending to fund the war.
* 'At least $20 billion'
In April, Department of Defense comptroller Dov Zakheim estimates that the cost of the war to that point at more than $20 billion.
* 'Affordable' (reconstruction only)
Later that month, Mitch Daniels said, "There's just no reason that this [rebuilding Iraq] can't be an affordable endeavor." In June, Daniels left the White House to run for governor in Indiana, running on a platform of rebuilding the state's economy.
* '$3.9 billion a month'
Appearing before Congress in July, Rumsfeld tussled with Senator Robert Byrd, who demanded the current cost of operations in Iraq. Asked if the Pentagon had a monthly figure, Rumsfeld replied, "I'm sure there is, and we'll get it for you." Byrd retorted, "Well, you like to have figures fast when it comes to appropriation money." Rumsfeld eventually revealed that the Pentagon's average "burn rate" was $3.9 million a month, or around $47 billion a year.
* '$50 billion, $60 billion, maybe $100 billion' (reconstruction only)
In July, Paul Bremer, the head US administrator in Iraq, said that the cost of reconstruction is "probably well above $50 billion, $60 billion, maybe $100 billion. It's a lot of money."
Thank you Paul. That is a lot of money.
The Mother Jones article also detailed a list of estimates from non-administration sources:
* $27 billion to $31 billion (war and reconstruction)
Congressional Budget Office, September 2002
* $99 billion to $1.9 trillion (war and reconstruction)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, December 2002
* $43 billion to $190 billion (war and reconstruction)
Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, February 2003
* At least $20 billion per year (reconstruction only)
Council on Foreign Relations, March 2003
* $150 to $300 billion (reconstruction only)
Brookings Institution, August 2003
* $8 billion to $11.6 billion per year (occupation only)
Congressional Budget Office, September 2003
* $500 billion (occupation and reconstruction)
Middle East Policy Council, September 2003
I'm not an accountant. But the next time we're told we "can't afford not to" topple a dictator at a mere $50-60B by our government, we should consider hiring a team of them.