EFTA01090686.pdf

WATSON INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ST BROWN UN IL COST OF WAR Project 330,000 Killed by Violence, $4 Trillion Spent and Obligated $BILLIONS REPORT/SOURCE ESTIMATED Congressional War Appropriations to Pentagon' 51.406.9 Wheeler and Crawford War-related Additions to the Pentagon Base Budget 743.1 Crawford DOLLAR War-related international Assistance (State Department/USAID)' 103.5 Dana and Crawford COSTS OF Veteran's Medical and Disability 134.7 (dimes Additions to Homeland Security Spending 455.2 Dana and Crawford WARS, in Cumulative Interest Payments on Pentagon War and State/USAID 259.4 Edwards Appropriations through FY2013 by 2013 $BILLIONS SUBTOTAL FEDERAL OUTLAYS FY2001-FY2013 3,102.85 THESE U.S. TOTALS DO NOT INCLUDE: Projected I rag, Afghanistan and ONE spending, FY 2014' 65 Crawford Medicate costs for injured veterans Projected Increase In Pentagon Base, FY2014 65 Crawford after age65; Expenses fa veterans Future Obligations for Veterans Medical and Disability through 2053' 754.4 Bilmes paid for by state and local government budgets w the social cost of veterans SUBTOTAL FUTURE SPENDING AND OBLIGATIONS 884.4 care; Additional macroeconomic consequencesof war spending TOTAL COSTS OF WARS FROM FY2001 INCLUDING FUTURE 3,987.25 including infrastructure and jobs. On SPENDING AN0 OBLIGATIONS macroeconomic consequences, see: EdwarcisMeina, and Garrett-Peltier. Additional Cumulative Interest on Past Pentagon and State/uSA ID >7,000 Edwards War Appropriations FY2001-2013 by 2053' Page I 1 of 4 EFTA01090686  The wars begun in 2001 have been tremendously painful for millions of people in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, and the United States, and economically costly as well. Each additional month and year of war will add to that toll. Moreover, the human costs of these conflicts will reverberate for years to come in each of those four countries. There is no turning the page on the wars with the end of hostilities, and there is even more need as a result to understand what those wars' consequences are and will be. The goal of the Costs of War project has been to outline a broad understanding of the domestic and international costs and consequences of those wars. A team of 30 economists, anthropologists, political scientists, legal experts, and physicians were assembled to do this analysis. Their research papers are posted and summarized on this website. Hatalasts osmium US Cagradca. Waimea 37S com 140) ImamsUsti. 1 Mild Mama as. Pdla. Oda AS1e4 1.390 Oppsidia 330,000 Direct War Deaths, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, 2001-February 2013' • Does not Include Indirect deaths which may total many hundreds of thousands more We asked: • What have been the wars' costs in human and economic terms? • How have these wars changed the social and political landscape of the United States and the countries where the wars have been waged? • What have been the public health consequences of the wars? • What will be the long term legacy of these conflicts for veterans? • What is the long term economic effect of these wars likely to be? • Were and are there alternative less costly and more effective ways to prevent further terror attacks? Some of the project's findings: • Our tally of all of the war's dead — including soldiers, militants, police, contractors, journalists, humanitarian workers and civilians — shows that at least 330,000 people have died due to direct war violence. • Indirect deaths from the wars, including those related to malnutrition, damaged health infrastructure, and environmental degradation, must also be tallied. In previous wars, these deaths have far outnumbered deaths from combat and that is likely the case here as well. • 200,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the fighting at the hands of all parties to the conflict, and more will die in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan as the violence continues. But most observers acknowledge that the number of civilians killed has been undercounted. The true number of civilian dead may be much larger when an adequate assessment is made. Page 12 of 0 EFTA01090687 • While we know how many US soldiers have died in the wars (over 6,600), what is startling is what we don't know about the levels of injury and illness in those who have returned from the wars. New disability claims continue to pour into the VA, with over 750,000 disability claims already approved.[2J Many deaths and injuries among US contractors have not been identified. • Millions of people have been displaced indefinitely and are living in grossly inadequate conditions. The number of war refugees and displaced persons --7.4 million-- Is equivalent to all of the people of Connecticut and Oregon fleeing their homes. • Despite the US military withdrawal, Iraq's health, infrastructure, and education systems remain war-devastated. • The armed conflict in Pakistan, which the US helps the Pakistani military fight by funding, equipping and training them, is in many ways more intense than in Afghanistan although it receives less coverage in the US news. • The United States is at war in Yemen. During 2012, the Obama administration quickened its pace of drone strikes in the country. • The wars have been accompanied by erosions in dvil liberties at home and human rights violations abroad. • The human and economic costs of these wars will continue for decades, some costs not peaking until mid-century. • The US federal price tag for the Iraq war — including an estimate for veterans' medical and disability costs into the future — is about $2.2 trillion dollars. The cost for both Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan is going to be close to $4 trillion, not including future interest costs on borrowing for the wars. Many of the wars' costs are invisible to Americans, buried in a variety of budgets, and so have not been counted or assessed. For example, while most people think the Pentagon war appropriations are equivalent to the wars' budgetary costs, the true numbers are twice that, and the full economic cost of the wars much larger yet. • As with former US wars, the costs of paying for veterans' care into the future will be a sizable portion of the full costs of the war. • The ripple effects on the US economy have also been significant, induding Job loss and interest rate increases, and those effects have been underappreciated. • While it was promised that the US invasions would bring democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, both continue to rank low in global rankings of political freedom, with warlords continuing to hold power in Afghanistan with US support, and Iraqi communities are more segregated today than before by gender and ethnicity as a result of the war. • Women in both countries are essentially closed out of political power and high rates of female unemployment and widowhood have further eroded their condition. • During the US troop withdrawal from Iraq, President Obama said that the United States military was leaving behind a "sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq." This was not only an inaccurate account of Iraq's situation at that time, but the country has since become less secure and politically stable. Although violence in Iraq has dedined since its peak, there has been a steady increase in the number of attacks over the last year. [3] • Serious and compelling alternatives to war were scarcely considered in the aftermath of 9/11 or in the discussion about war against Iraq. Some of those alternatives are still available to the US. There are many costs of these wars that we have not yet been able to quantify and assess. With our limited resources, we focused on the human toll In the major war zones, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and on US spending, as well as on assessing the claims made for enhanced security, democracy, and women's condition. There is still much more to know and understand about how all those affected by the wars have had their health, economies, and communities altered by the decade of war, and what solutions exist for the problems they face as a result of the wars' destruction. Page 13 of 4 EFTA01090688  Iraq War: 190,000 lives, $2.2 trillion More than 190,000 people have been killed in the 10 years since the war in Iraq began. The war will cost the U.S. $2.2 trillion, including substantial costs for veterans care through 2053, far exceeding the initial government estimate of $50 to $60 billion, according to a new report by scholars with the "Costs of War" project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. The 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq is March 19, 2013. PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003, researchers have released the first comprehensive analysis of direct and indirect human and economic costs of the war that followed. According to the report, the war has killed at least 190,000 people, including men and women in uniform, contractors, and civilians and will cost the United States $2.2 trillion — a figure that far exceeds the initial 2002 estimates by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget of $50 to $60 billion. The report was released by the Costs of War project, based at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies. Catherine Lutz, the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Family Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at Brown University, co-directs the project with Neta C. Crawford, professor of political science at Boston University. Among the group's main findings: • More than 70 percent of those who died of direct war violence in Iraq have been civilians — an estimated 134,000. This number does not account for indirect deaths due to increased vulnerability to disease or injury as a result of war-degraded conditions. That number is estimated to be several times higher. • The Iraq War will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers at least $2.2 trillion. Because the Iraq war appropriations were funded by borrowing, cumulative interest through 2053 could amount to more than $3.9 trillion. • Th $2.2 trillion figure includes care for veterans who were injured in the war in Iraq, which will cost the United States almost $500 billion through 2053. • The total of U.S. service members killed in Iraq is 4,488. At least 3,400 U.S. contractors have died as well, a number often under-reported. • Terrorism in Iraq increased dramatically as a result of the invasion and tactics and fighters were exported to Syria and other neighboring countries. Page 14 of 4 EFTA01090689  • Iraq's health care infrastructure remains devastated from sanctions and war. More than half of Iraq's medical doctors left the country during the 2000s, and tens of thousands of Iraqi patients are forced to seek health care outside the country. • The $60 billion spent on reconstruction for Iraq has not gone to rebuilding infrastructure such as roads, health care, and water treatment systems, but primarily to the military and police. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has found massive fraud, waste, and abuse of reconstruction funds. In releasing the report, Lutz said, "The staggering number of deaths in Iraq is hard to fathom, but each of these individuals has to count and be counted." "Nearly every government that goes to war underestimates its duration, neglects to tally all the costs, and overestimates the political objectives that will be accomplished by war's violence," Crawford said. The project also assesses claims made as part of the rationale for invading Iraq: increased U.S. security, enhanced democratic governance in Iraq, and improved conditions for Iraqi women. Costs of War has released its findings online, at www.costsofwar.org, to spur public discussion about the Iraq war. US Troop and Contractor Levels The Costs of War project involves 30 economists, in Afghanistan and Iraq anthropologists, lawyers, humanitarian personnel, and political scientists from IS universities, the 200.000 160.000 United Nations, and other organizations. In 2011 U0.000 the group released figures for a range of human and 110.000 40.000 =0 economic costs associated with the U.S. military 0 N• response to the 9/11 attacks. It estimated the total soOld?a00°Toossoooso t oos t ooo1.0% lo so` IP.'10 quiet through luny IOW see Nom Amy Troop Levels combined costs of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, StlatCO."Tha COSI of leap. Afghanistan. •"d Other Global War on Temp AFGHANISTAN Operations Since 20117 tongue:Ronal IRAQ and Pakistan at $4 trillion and total direct war Rvvvvv Math 20, 2011 TOTAL US TROOPS Isl CONTRACTORS casualties at minimum of 330,000 men, women, and children. Costs of War is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, scholarly initiative that derives its purpose from President Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address, in which he warned of the "unwarranted influence" of the military-industrial complex and appealed for an "alert and knowledgeable citizenry" as the only force able to balance the often contrasting demands of security and liberty in a democratic state. Page I S of 4 EFTA01090690 The Watson Institute's Choices Program, which develops curricula on current and historical international issues, offers two online lessons related to the Iraq War: One on the (-JAN of War report and one on the Iraq refugee crisis. Editors: Brown University has a fiber link television studio available for domestic and international live and taped interviews, and maintains an ISDN line for radio interviews. For more information, call (401) 863-2476 (401) 863-2476 FREE . Pagel 6 of 4 EFTA01090691