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thedrifter
04-11-09, 07:14 AM
Iraq War costs: New spending likely to drive cost of Iraq War past that for Vietnam War
Volunteer force and technology are keys
By Julian E. Barnes | Washington Bureau
2:58 AM CDT, April 11, 2009

WASHINGTON — U.S. spending on the Iraq War will surpass the amount spent on the Vietnam War by the end of the year, making Iraq the second most expensive military conflict in American history, behind World War II, according to Pentagon figures provided Friday.

If Congress approves the supplemental funding request submitted this week by the Obama administration, it will add $87 billion to the cost of the war for 2009, apart from amounts for Afghanistan or elsewhere.

Added to the amount spent through 2008, it would mean the Iraq War will have cost taxpayers a total of about $694 billion. The Vietnam War cost $686 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars, and World War II cost $4 trillion, according to a Congressional Research Service study completed last year.

In Vietnam, U.S. forces at their peak had up to three times as many troops at any one time as in Iraq and suffered 58,000 deaths, more than 12 times as many as have died in Iraq. But experts said there are two broad reasons for the added expense of the Iraq War: people and equipment.

The Iraq War is the second-longest modern war ever fought with an all-volunteer U.S. force, behind the smaller-scale effort in Afghanistan.

"This is a volunteer military, which is pretty unusual in an extended war," said Stephen Biddle, a military historian at the Council on Foreign Relations. "And people cost more." Volunteer forces, Biddle said, are more expensive because of the premium needed to retain people.

U.S. officials in Iraq also have relied heavily on private contractors, used to protect diplomats and defend bases, transport provisions and staff essentials such as food services.

A Congressional Budget Office report last year estimated there were 190,000 contract workers employed by U.S. agencies in Iraq — even more than the number of U.S. personnel at the peak of the 2007 troop surge, 160,000 to 170,000 troops. The salaries earned by the contractors were far higher than those of ordinary soldiers.

Medical care in Iraq has been far more expensive, Biddle said. Combat doctors have been able to save soldiers and Marines who, in earlier conflicts, would have died. Both the initial treatment and long-term care are expensive. "Certainly many, many more people who get hit by enemy fire live through the experience, and I suspect that treating someone who survives is more expensive than having them die, in dollar terms," he said.

The cost of the Iraq War has also been driven up by the equipment. Roadside bombs and sandstorms have destroyed expensive equipment at far more rapid rates than the military expected.

jbarnes@tribune.com

Ellie