- As casualties mount in Iraq, so has the monetary cost
of the war. The military is now spending more than $5.8 billion each month,
top officials told Congress this week.
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- The service chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine
Corps told the House Armed Service Committee that the price of war has
jumped as fighting continues and reconstruction efforts are stymied by
security concerns. And, in a few months, more money will be needed.
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- The Army, with about 110,000 soldiers on the ground in
Iraq, has a monthly "burn rate" of $4.7 billion.
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- The Air Force is spending about $800 million monthly.
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- The Marines, which are spearheading the fighting in Fallujah,
had an average monthly war cost of $300 million.
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- The Navy, which was silent about its spending during
the committee hearing Wednesday, did not provide its war spending totals
yesterday.
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- War spending, known euphemistically as the "burn
rate," includes the cost of fighting, feeding and fueling the forces
in the area, according to the military.
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- Besides such consumables as bullets, bombs, food and
gas, the money is used to bolster the body and vehicle armor protecting
troops; buy weapons, uniforms, tents and other gear for soldiers; and replace
vehicles lost in attacks, roadside bombs and accidents.
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- It doesn't include soldiers' regular pay and other routine
costs unchanged by the war.
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- On a yearly basis, the war tab is about $70 billion.
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- "That's larger than the gross domestic product of
most nations," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute, a research
group in Arlington, Va.
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- The price of war is escalating.
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- Initial cost estimates pegged the monthly burn rate at
$2.2 billion in early 2003. By July 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
said that costs were running about $3.9 billion a month. In June, the Pentagon
comptroller said that the monthly bill was nearly $5 billion.
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- In August, the Pentagon got a $25 billion boost for the
war through a supplemental appropriation, but military officials said this
week that the money likely will run out in a few months unless another
temporary spending bill is approved.
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- The money that the Marine Corps' set aside will "take
us through the spring," said Gen. Michael Hagee, the Marine commandant.
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- Hagee testified alongside Army Gen. Peter Schoomaker,
Air Force Gen. John Jumper and Navy Adm. Vern Clark.
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- Defense analyst John Pike said that the burn rate is
likely to increase.
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- "I think the burn rate is going to get worse because
the counter-insurgency effort will continue to be on our shoulders,"
said Pike, who is the director of GlobalSecurity.org, an independent research
group.
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- The fighting in Fallujah and other cities has been rising
as January elections in Iraq near. The increasing costs could have a lasting
effect on the military's future, military analysts say.
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- "If the current rate of expenditures is sustained,
this will cut into Rumsfeld's plan to transform the military" into
a more capable and flexible force, Thompson said.
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- The result, he suggested, could be cutting new weapons
systems or stretching out the purchase of fighters, warships and other
weapons.
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- To help understand how much money $5.8 billion is, think
of it in $1 bills. That would be 5,800,000,000 bills, weighing nearly 12.8
million pounds. Stacked, the bills would reach more than 393 miles into
space.
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- That's for one month.
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- http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/041119-iraq-burn-rate.htm
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