Joseph Stiglitz at Brave New Films

The Hidden Cost of War: Watch How Fast $3 Trillion Adds Up

2008-10-03T17:08:37Z

In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld estimated a war with Iraq would cost $60 billion. Five years later, the cost of Iraq war operations is over 10 times that figure. And by the time the war is finished, it will be 50 times that much.

What's behind the ballooning dollar signs?

Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilme's exhaustedly researched book, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict, breaks down the price tag, from current debts to the unseen costs we'll pay for years to come.

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For more perspective on just how much $3 trillion really is, go on The $3 Shopping Spree.

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The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree

2008-04-25T16:43:19Z

Whew! Just got done spending $3 trillion. Try it yourself – it’s a lot harder than you might think. Honestly, it would have been a whole lot easier just to follow the President’s example and blow it all on one illegal occupation of Iraq.

$3 trillion is the projected cost of the Iraq War according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes. That’s a whole lot of zeroes, but what does it really amount to? How many homes would it buy for Americans who’ve fallen victim to the subprime meltdown? How many debts would it pay off for developing nations? For that matter, how many of those new Mac Air laptops would it buy me? As it turns out, one whole hell of a lot of all of those things combined. Try it yourself:

http://3trillion.org/

What a colossal waste of money. What a tragedy of lost opportunities.

In the Bush Administration’s defense, of course, they had no idea it would cost this much when they embarked on their insane crusade (in fact, they still don’t). Along with cheering Iraqis, arsenals of WMDs, and leprechauns and unicorns, the White House expected to be presenting the American people with a much, much smaller bill for its services. Back in 2003, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld (remember him?) was fond of quoting the projected cost at $50 billion.

$50 billion? That’s chump change. You could barely afford a science thing for that. Proportionally, the difference between $50 billion and $3 trillion is the difference between $50 and $3,000. Try buying a Hannah Montana ticket for fifty bucks.

You may recall that about six years ago, Bush’s own chief economic adviser, Lawrence Linsdey, was pushed out of the White House for suggesting that the war could cost up to a trifling $200 billion – still $2.8 trillion off the mark. “Baloney” was how Rumsfeld characterized Lindsey’s estimate, before quoting the $50 billion figure.

With Rumsfeld gone, one would hope to see a little more honest accounting out of the Defense Department. So what does The Pentagon have to say about Stiglitz’s sobering calculation? That number "seems way out of the ballpark to me," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.

Could $3 trillion cover the cost of a worthwhile accountant at the DoD? Apparently that’s the only thing it can’t afford.

The Three Trillion Dollar Shopping Spree

2008-08-29T20:50:28Z

The cost of the Iraq War is a grave issue. We are committed to spreading awareness about the devastating financial toll the war is taking on each and every one of us, let alone our economy.

$3 trillion. That is what Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the war will cost our country. Make no mistake, this $3 trillion bill is crippling our economy and causing our Iraq recession. To put this colossal amount of cash into perspective, we've designed a game to help people really understand what $3 trillion dollars can buy.

Get ready to go on a 3 Trillion Dollar Shopping Spree!

When the war was already hurting our economy two years ago, President Bush announced that Americans should go shopping—a brilliant plan to remedy our ailing economy. So follow the President's advice in this virtual shopping bonanza and rack up a $3 trillion tab like he has in real life. All you have to do is stroll down through our online store, add items to your cart for yourself or friends, and check out. It's just that easy!

Whether you buy serious gifts like healthcare for all Americans or frivolous ones like building the world's tallest building, we hope you'll begin to see just how far $3 trillion could go and help others understand the cost of this war.

This "game" is designed to build further awareness, and we need your help to make that happen, just as you have done on previous successful campaigns from FOX Attacks to the War on Greed to Hurricane Katrina recovery.

Please buy gifts for your all your friends and loved ones, and send them e-mails to let them know you've found better ways to spend our nation's money than the President. We need to help Americans understand the war's economic toll.

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The True Cost of the Iraq War

2008-08-10T21:44:42Z

Anyone remember back to January 2003, right before we invaded Iraq? Rumsfeld said the cost of this war would be under $50 billion, and that other countries would probably shoulder a lot of that financial burden.

Well, as it turns out, when Rummy said "$50 billion," he actually meant $3 trillion and counting. And when he said "other countries," he meant U.S. taxpayers.

Joseph Stieglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, has estimated that the total cost of this war will be $3 trillion dollars, which he claims is a conservative estimate. And though the Bush administration has stuck to the assertion that war has only cost us $500 billion, Reuters asserts that this cost is still sapping our economy:

The Cost of the Iraq War (part 2)

2008-06-15T09:29:46Z

With the cost of the Iraq war rising, we look at the long-term implications.

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