Critical Times

Senate Blocks Iraq War Money

By Anne Flaherty The Associated Press Friday 16 November 2007 The Senate on Friday blocked a Democratic proposal that would have paid for the Iraq war but required that troops start coming home. The 53-45 vote was seven votes short of the 60 needed to advance. It came minutes after the Senate rejected a Republican proposal to pay for the Iraq war with no strings attached. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the only way to get troops the money was to approve the restrictions outlined by Democrats. “Our troops continue to fight and die valiantly. And our Treasury continues to be depleted rapidly, for a peace that we seem far more interested in achieving than Iraq’s own political leaders,” Reid said. Republicans said Democrats were being irresponsible. “We need to get our troops everything they need,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “We need to get it to them right now.” Four Republicans joined Democrats in voting for the measure: Sens. Gordon Smith of Oregon, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Susan Collins of Maine and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., was the lone Democrat opposing it because he said it did not go far enough to end the war. The Republican proposal to pay for the Iraq war with no strings attached failed by a vote of 45-53, which was 15 short of the number needed to go forward. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said this week that if Congress cannot pass legislation that ties war money to troop withdrawals, they would not send President Bush a bill this year. Instead, they would revisit the issue upon returning in January, pushing the Pentagon to the brink of an accounting nightmare and deepening Democrats’ conflict with the White House on the war. In the meantime, Democrats say, the Pentagon can use some of its $471 billion annual budget without being forced to take drastic steps. “The days of a free lunch are over,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. At the White House on Friday, deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said: “DOD would have to eat into their annual budget and I believe that still presents difficulties in getting the troops in the field the resources they need to carry out their mission.” “We’d rather see the Department of Defense, the military planners and our troops focusing on military maneuvers rather than accounting maneuvers as they carry out their mission in the field,” Fratto said. “I think Congress should send this money, allow these troops to get the equipment they need. There is no reason why they should not get the money. This isn’t like this is a last-minute effort and call for funding.” He said the president sent his budget to Congress back in February last year. Along with that was the supplemental request for more than $145 billion for the global war on terror. The request last month was an augmentation to that request, but they’ve known that funding is needed, Fratto said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that unless Congress passes funding for the war within days, he will direct the Army and Marine Corps to begin developing plans to lay off employees and terminate contracts early next year. Gates, who met with lawmakers on Wednesday, said he does not have the money or the flexibility to move funds around to adequately cover the costs of the continuing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. “There is a misperception that this department can continue funding our troops in the field for an indefinite period of time through accounting maneuvers, that we can shuffle money around the department. This is a serious misconception,” Gates told reporters at the Pentagon. As a result, he said, he is faced with the undesirable task of preparing to cease operations at Army bases by mid-February, and lay off about 100,000 defense department employees and an equal number of civilian contractors. A month later, he said, similar moves would have to be made by the Marines.

$3,500 Billion!

By Mario Roy La Presse Thursday 15 November 2007 When people are dying in the thousands, there’s something a little indecent about calculating in dollars and cents what the process costs that is leading them thus to their deaths. Nonetheless, that’s what a committee of the American Congress has done with respect to the war in Iraq and, secondarily, the Afghan conflict. The result of that labor makes known figures so mind-blowing, they constitute a real threat for the United States’ economy. And, in consequence, for the global economy. So, these two military operations have cost American citizens $1,600 billion dollars so far, or double the budgets officially allocated by Washington to this expense category. In the worst case scenario, the bill will rise to $3,500 billion in 10 years. We find ourselves light years away from what George W. Bush predicted in 2003: that the Iraqi operation would cost between $50 billion and $60 billion and that the disbursement would be offset by [related] oil profits. Yet in 2006, the $30 billion generated by Iraqi oil was entirely absorbed by the Iraqi state, the reconstruction of which nonetheless remains seriously deficient. Yes, the 30-page study is partisan. It was conducted by Democratic members of the joint Congressional economics committee, but did not receive the endorsement of the committee’s Republicans. Nonetheless, it simply cuts other data a different way, and, in many cases, merely strings together already-proven things. The report takes into account not only the direct costs of the military operations, but also the indirect costs, notably: the increase in oil prices (which have gone from $37 to $90 per barrel), interest on foreign debt, the costs of veterans’ rehabilitation and medical care, and the opportunity costs to employment and investment. The overwhelming proportion of these costs is linked to the operation to overthrow the dictator of Baghdad, a war undertaken “by choice” and not by necessity, as the Congressional committee correctly calls to mind. Consequently, the squandering of the $2,800 billion committed to that venture is particularly appalling. That’s without mentioning the 4,000 American soldiers killed and the indeterminate number – somewhere between 80,000 and 600,000 – of Iraqis killed. Also, as the report further indicates, without taking into account the “harm to our reputation and our credibility in the world.” How much, already? Three thousand five hundred billion? Numbers like this leave us cold because they exceed the understanding of ordinary mortals, which gets confused after a million. I will spare the reader the corny old populist refrain about how, had this money been invested in the fight against poverty, it would have enabled this and that. Everyone knows that, on this scale, that’s not how things work. All the same, it’s possible to bring it all back to a human dimension. For example, this $3,500 billion represents $46,400 for every American family – the price of a home in certain poor regions of the country. And one may also compare the issue to another decision of the United States, one taken in 1947, to promote the Marshall Plan. That succeeded in pulling 16 European countries out from the ruins of World War II and only cost American taxpayers $100 billion (in today’s dollars) – or 35 times less. What one measures this way is not only a mountain of bank notes. But also the gulf between policy supplied with vision and another policy which cruelly lacked it.

Army Desertion Rate Highest Since 1980

The Associated Press Friday 16 November 2007 Washington – Soldiers strained by six years at war are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980, with the number of Army deserters this year showing an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. While the totals are still far lower than they were during the Vietnam war, when the draft was in effect, they show a steady increase over the past four years and a 42 percent jump since last year. According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared to nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared to 3,301 last year. The increase comes as the Army continues to bear the brunt of the war demands with many soldiers serving repeated, lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Military leaders – including Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey – have acknowledged that the Army has been stretched nearly to the breaking point by the combat. And efforts are under way to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps to lessen the burden and give troops more time off between deployments. Despite the continued increase in desertions, however, an Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures earlier this year showed that the military does little to find those who bolt, and rarely prosecutes the ones they get. Some are allowed to simply return to their units, while most are given less-than-honorable discharges. ———— On the Net: Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil What Are We Fighting For? By E.J. Dionne Truthdig Thursday 15 November 2007 Washington – It’s time that we subject the Iraq war to the same cost-benefit analysis that we are called upon to impose on other government endeavors. We are supposed to repeal or revise domestic programs that don’t work. Shouldn’t a troubled war policy be treated the same way? Driving the current debate is the assumption that we can’t afford to withdraw our troops from Iraq because of the chaos that will ensue. The idea seems to be that somehow-against the evidence of the last four and a half years-good things will happen if we just keep the war going. This upside-down debate puts the burden of proof in the wrong place. We should be asking whether keeping our forces in Iraq over an extended period is worth the cost in lives, injuries, money, lost opportunities and the strain on our military. How will a prolonged stay in Iraq enhance our security? Is Iraq distracting us from foreign policy questions that will matter far more to our national interest in the long run? President Bush regularly brags about the accomplishments of the troop surge. It’s certainly true that our troops have performed superbly. Let’s be happy that, albeit at great cost, the overall levels of violence in Iraq have dropped and that al-Qaida in Iraq is weaker today than it was some months ago. The question to which the administration has no answer is how this military success will produce a decent outcome down the road. From Thomas E. Ricks, The Washington Post’s military correspondent, comes a disturbing answer. Ricks reports that our own commanders in the field “now portray the intransigence of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaida terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias.” Ricks quotes Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno on what it would mean if Iraq’s leaders fail to use this moment of reduced violence to arrive at new power-sharing arrangements. “If that doesn’t happen,” Odierno said, “we’re going to have to review our strategy.” Odierno’s candid remarks should unleash a clamor for the administration to explain where its policy is taking us-and whether the continuing sacrifice in Iraq is achieving more than just temporary tactical victories. We can trust our military commanders on tactics. Experience teaches us to be skeptical of the administration on strategy. Bush’s approach to Iraq is the classic case of a politician arguing that a problem will be solved if only we keep throwing large sums of money at it. That’s why a report on the staggering costs of our Iraq intervention, issued Wednesday by the Democratic staff of the Joint Economic Committee, is useful. The report noted that Bush has requested a total of $607 billion for the war, and that its actual cost to our economy is $1.3 trillion. Republican critics of the JEC report, “War At Any Price?” argued that some of its numbers are tendentious. Yes, this study has its moments of tendentiousness. But that doesn’t undercut the importance of the questions it asks. Consider only this number: Interest costs on Iraq-related debt will be more than $23 billion for the 2008 fiscal year. That sum is almost exactly the difference between Bush and Congress on spending levels for the entire budget now being debated. Why are the costs of the Iraq war not considered part of our larger budget debate? On Tuesday, Bush vetoed Congress’ $606 billion labor, health and education bill because of a $10 billion difference on spending for domestic concerns. But he is asking for a supplemental appropriation of $196 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan-an increase of $46 billion over what he had sought in October. So it comes down to this: Bush can bust the budget for Iraq, but God forbid that we spend a little more on education. In the way he’s managing the Iraq and budget debates, the president is trying to evade the essential questions. By focusing on the surge, Bush avoids responsibility for explaining where we might be in Iraq at the end of his term. And by picking symbolic budget fights, he never has to explain how his own policies-his ludicrous initial assumptions about the costs of the war, his refusal to ask for the taxes to fund it-have created the fiscal mess he now decries. You’d think that facing the verdict of history, not simply an election, the president would be more serious about these things. ————