As we recently passed a tragic milestone in terms of US soldier deaths, I began to wonder how close we have come to matching the economic impact of the September 11th attacks (given that this administration has decided to tie invading Iraq to some overall "war on terror" born of the September 11, 2001 attacks).
I came across
this GAO report which is inconsistent but does mention two studies:
The New York State Senate Finance Committee estimated losses of $639 billion to the United States through 2003 and $22 billion to New York State (in current dollars).
The Milken Institute estimated losses of $2.7 billion to the New York–New Jersey metropolitan area in 2001 and $191 billion to all 315 U.S. metropolitan areas (in constant 2001 dollars).
According to
National Priorities Project - Cost of War calculator, $315 billion will have been spent by the end of FY2006 (Sept. 30, 2006). Figure at least another $50 billion (and that's very conservative considering spending is about $9 million/hr right now) for FY2007 and we're at $365 billion spent on Iraq.
That's right in between the amounts in the two studies above.
Then, there's the morbid comparison of lives lost.
2,985 lives were lost at the WTC, Pentagon, and United 93 crash in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001. As of today, 2,515 US troops (2,741 coalition troops) have lost their lives in Iraq and another 18,356 have been wounded (
http://icasualties.org).
So, for what do we have this administration to thank for having invading Iraq to fight the "war on terror"? Well, from this perspective, human and economic losses on par with the original September 11th attacks. Not to mention now being at greater risk to terror attacks due to inflaming Islamist groups by having invaded Iraq.
"Heckuva job", wouldn't you say?
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