Friday, October 31, 2003

Analysts Accurately Gauge Iraq Costs: "Months before the U.S.-led war in Iraq, independent and congressional analysts made remarkably accurate predictions of the costs of a post-war occupation, even as the Pentagon refused to do so, or gave very low estimates.

The discrepancy is gaining new attention with lawmakers complaining of the costs as they approve the president's request for $87 billion to occupy and rebuild Iraq. The House approved the package Thursday, and the Senate is expected to do so Monday."

``We were all hit with sticker shock: $87 billion is a huge number,'' said Rep. Zack Wamp, R-Tenn., during House debate Thursday night. ``I'm going to grit my teeth and vote yes tonight and say that we cannot afford to fail in Iraq.''

Bush administration officials repeatedly insisted before the war that they could not estimate how much the war or the postwar occupation might cost.

But the Congressional Budget Office, for example, estimated in September 2002 that occupying Iraq would cost between $1 billion and $4 billion a month.

The current figure? About $4 billion a month.

``The American people were taken by surprise by the administration's budget request, because there was not enough lead-up to explain how much of a sacrifice would be needed,'' said Bathsheba Crocker, a former State Department budget adviser now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an independent Washington think tank.

The administration's aversion to cost estimates was intertwined with Pentagon officials' reluctance to estimate how many troops would be needed to occupy Iraq.

Before the war, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials disputed a prediction by then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki that more than 200,000 troops would be needed. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz called Shinseki's estimate ``wildly off the mark.''

The occupation now occupies some 132,000 American troops, supported by 22,000 troops from other nations and more than 90,000 Iraqi security forces -- more than 244,000 people under arms. The money to pay for both the U.S. troops and the Iraqi forces comes almost exclusively from the United States.

``The problem is, the administration didn't ever publicly come up with how many troops they thought would be there, or how long they would be there,'' said Steven Kosiak, an analyst with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. ``It's not that difficult to estimate what the costs will be if you have some idea of the numbers of troops.''

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-War-Costs.html

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