Dead on correct. We’ve spent about 1 yr extra “normal” budget on military operations (using the accurate numbers) in 66 months than “normal”. Most (as in overwhelming amount) of this money is paid to Americans (soldiers/contractors/industry/shipping). Military and defense civilian salary is part of this, as our my vehicles, leaps in technology, and increased operations costs. Some went to third country nationals, rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan through local and European vendors, extra foreign aid to our 30+ coalition partners to all their military forces to communicate and integrate with ours (radios, training, etc).

Adding in Afghanistan ups the cost more, but the return on investment (no attacks since 9-11-01 vs multiple attacks in the 90s and the destruction/dismemberment of islamic fascist strongholds, training grounds, forces, and the revealing and/or destruction of its finances) of killing the enemy on their own soil, and not ours is immense. We can also add other theaters in the GWOT which are under normal operations: Anti-piracy in the Straits of Malacca and off the Somali coast, training allied military forces, force protection, force modernization, base improvements and expansions (or closures) from the BRAC, etc.

It is also A LOT cheaper than rebuilding multiple US zipcodes and eventually cities after terror attack after attack after attack (as the pattern of the 90s indicated that AQ would continue to press attacks if not stopped or if the US, again, took a passive response). The sheep can ignore this pattern as they do the rest of the truth about the GWOT, but when the left was in power, its leaders stated the same thing (but did nothing substantial).

all total, the cost of the war in Iraq is freakin’ NOTHING compared to the Dodd/Frank bill that Americans have to pay.

According to the Congressional Research Service (I believe Senator Obama and Senator Biden are members of Congress) as of July of this year the war in Iraq has cost $444.2billion over the past 66 months (an average of $6billion a month-not $8, $10, or $12bil, but…what’s a few billion among Democratic Party senators?)

That makes this now bloated & pork padded $810 bil bailout the equivalent of staying in Iraq for 11.25 years…. the latter a bargain by comparison.

What about this Iraqi surplus? Is it accurate?

According to Factcheck.org:

Biden said that Iraq had an “$80 billion surplus.” Obama said the same — $79 billion — in the last debate, and we called him on it then. Seventy-nine billion is an out-of-date projection. The Iraqis currently have $29 billion in the bank, and could have $47 billion to $59 billion by the end of the year.

From Newsvine:

Success in any war requires the employment of adequate military resources, but success in a conflict like that in Iraq calls for more than mere physical security. Among many other things it requires the training of an indigenous armed force, the delivery of essential services, and the establishment and maintenance of a viable economic sector. The slow pace of redevelopment causes a number of unattractive outcomes, including overburdening the American operation and forcing us to remain in Iraq longer than we otherwise would.

For its part, the Iraqi government says that it is trying hard to shoulder more of the burden of reconstruction, but that it is hampered by restrictive policies designed to eliminate corruption and by an immature bureaucracy that has little experience in administering vital reconstruction programs.

All this is demonstrably true, but it does little to mollify critics or rectify the problem. So, even as things are improving dramatically in Iraq, it is not surprising that many people have become frustrated with the pace of progress and even supporters are now vocal about it. When this is accompanied by a weakening American economy and energy-driven inflation, the observation that Iraq has a gigantic surplus of money from oil revenues converts frustration into impatience.

There is a lesson here of wide applicability. The health of every relationship—an alliance, a partnership, a marriage—depends on the notion of fairness. Burdens and sacrifice must appear to be shared, and relationships collapse when it seems that one party can do more but doesn’t. We need to pay as much attention to getting the Iraqi government and economy in shape as we do to training its military establishment, and failing to do so will result in increasing impatience, irritation, anger and ultimately abandonment of the mission.

Medved:

The most irritating and most seriously misleading involved the relative cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three times, with great earnestness and passion, he cited a mysterious statistic claiming that we spend more every three weeks in Iraq than we have invested in the Afghan War for its duration.

Actually, statistics from The Congressional Research Service (posted on the website of the Center for Arms Control and Nuclear Non-Proliferation) show that our biggest Iraq expenditure came in Fiscal Year 2008 and reached $158 billion – or $3 billion per week. This means that Biden’s “three weeks in Iraq” would cost $9 billion at most.

And what about our commitment to Afghanistan? Has it really been $9 billion over seven years, as Biden suggested? The truth is we’ve spent $177.5 total in Afghanistan (compared to $661.1 billion in Iraq). This means that Biden either over-stated the cost of our war in Iraq TWENTY TIMES, or else understated the cost of our war in Afghanistan by a factor of twenty. Either way, the jerk is wrong by a distance equal to the width of the State of Delaware, and he delivered an Alaska-sized blooper three times in one evening.

I would look at it as our responsibility to continue funding our troops while Iraq uses such monies to stabilize their government and society — in the future, we’ll have stable financial and security partnerships with Iraq that will dwarf the war costs we’ve incurred.

Your thoughts?

I have no idea what the reconstruction numbers are for Afghanistan but to compare the cost of building roads in a third world country to fighting a war seems pretty idiotic plus where do you draw the line if say a military unit rebuilds a school but gets hit by an IED on the way there?

Such as the $80 billion Iraqi surplus figure.

I notice that Obama and Biden are no longer using “McCain wants us to stay in Iraq for a 100 years”, but now say fuzzy things like, “McCain wants us to stay for a long time”? So essentially, they’re trying to say the same thing, without being called on it.