Bush's Fuzzy War Math
News: After months of sidestepping and stonewalling, Bush finally puts a price tag on his war in Iraq. But it's just the first installment.
September 18, 2003
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Near the end of his September 7 address to the nation, George W. Bush spoke about something he never had before. Six months after he sent US troops rolling into Iraq, 18 weeks after he declared an end to "major combat operations," Bush finally offered an estimate of just how much the seemingly open-ended and relentlessly bloody operations in Iraq might cost.
Bush's request for $87 billion to underwrite the costs of his war on terror formally arrived on Capitol Hill yesterday, but it has been a source of pain and embarrassment for the administration for nearly two weeks. Perhaps that's why officials at the White House and the Pentagon spent 12 months stonewalling and sidestepping questions about how much the war in Iraq will cost.
Ever since former White House budget chief Lawrence Lindsey slipped up a year ago and admitted that an invasion and occupation of Iraq could cost between $100 billion and $200 billion, the administration has been playing hide-and-seek with the numbers. Budget figures have trickled out from various administration offices, but most have been heavily qualified, broad, or contradictory. And, until this month, they never came from the president himself.
Instead, Bush spent months talking tough about Iraq while refusing to talk at all about hard numbers. Even as late as August, he snapped at a reporter who requested an ballpark figure for the cost of rebuilding Iraq, "[W]e generally don't do our estimates on the back of an envelope." A formal funding request would come at "the appropriate time," he said. "[Y]ou know, the budgeting process is one that's ongoing. It's an iterative process, I guess is the best way to put it," he explained, turning to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "Iterative is the right word, you think?"
Iterative might also be the right word to describe the administration's pattern of vagueness, evasion and backtracking when pressed to put a price on the war and its aftermath.
Over the past year, administration officials have repeatedly ducked the question, asking for Congress and taxpayers' patience while they did the math. Last year, during the months of planning and half-hearted diplomacy, the White House sidestepped the issue by claiming that, since an invasion was not inevitable, the price was unknowable. As the war got underway, the administration hid behind the assertion that the military campaign -- the biggest since the Gulf War -- would not be dictated by the bottom line.
The new funding request covers operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, but at least $66 billion is expected to go to Iraq. On top of an earlier request for $79 billion, that brings the current price tag for invading, occupying, and rebuilding Iraq to more than $130 billion. Lindsey's prediction, so rapidly dismissed by the White House a year ago, is starting to look downright conservative. After all, the president's request only covers costs through 2004. As Vice President Dick Cheney grudgingly admitted on 'Meet the Press' this past weekend, the administration already anticipates asking Congress for even more money next year.
Below, a sampling of some 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."
All this executive branch caginess helped spawn a cottage industry of pundits, analysts and armchair number crunchers trying to calculate how many billions it would take to topple Saddam, get Iraq back on its feet, and bring the troops home. That has added to the confusion -- and to the sense that the administration has downplayed the long-term expenses of taking over Iraq. Unlike the administration, these third parties have been willing to look more than a year into the future. But their predictions have been all over the board, ranging from what now seems like pocket change to some real deficit busters. Some of their estimates:
• $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
Of course, figuring out the ultimate price tag depends on constantly changing variables, including several still-undefined ones: How long will the US remain in Iraq? How much will our allies or the UN pitch in? Where's that promised windfall from Iraqi oil? So far, the Bush administration is keeping mum on these questions, further fueling the guessing game. And as George W. Bush's makes his periodic demands for more money, it will only reinforce the impression that on the financial front, as on the military and diplomatic fronts, he is making things up as he goes along.
Image: AP/Wide World Photos
