The GAO released a report Wednesday on Bush’s Global War on Terror. The verdict is in:
[O]ur nation is not only threatened by external security threats, but also from within by growing fiscal imbalances due primarily to known demographic trends and rising health care costs. These trends are compounded by the near-term deficits arising from new discretionary and mandatory spending as well as lower revenues as a share of the economy. If left unchecked, these fiscal imbalances will ultimately impede economic growth, have an adverse effect on our future standard of living, and in due course affect our ability to address key national and homeland security needs.
These factors create the need to make choices that will only become more difficult and potentially disruptive the longer they are postponed. The United States’ commitment to GWOT will likely involve the continued investment of significant resources, requiring decision makers to consider difficult trade-offs as the nation faces increasing fiscal challenges, including a growing debt burden and interest costs on such debt, in the years ahead.
First, let’s examine the hard numbers:
Since the beginning of GWOT in 2001, Congress has appropriated about $430 billion to DOD and other U.S. government agencies for military and diplomatic efforts in support of GWOT. This funding has been provided through regular appropriations as well as supplemental appropriations, which are provided outside of the normal budget process. Since September 2001, DOD has received about $386 billion for GWOT military operations, including funding for homeland defense through Operation Noble Eagle. This $386 billion includes “bridge” funding in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 to continue GWOT operations until supplemental appropriations could be enacted.
In addition, U.S. government agencies, including the Department of State (State), DOD, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), have received about $44 billion since 2001 to fund reconstruction and stabilization programs in Iraq ($34.5 billion) and Afghanistan ($9 billion) with an additional $400 million for the Commanders’ Emergency Response Program in Iraq and Afghanistan. For fiscal year 2007, DOD has requested another $50 billion in bridge funding for military operations and other U.S. government agencies have requested $771 million for reconstruction and stabilization activities.
The figures are simply astounding. When confronted with the sheer size of our spending in Iraq and elsewhere, it is not difficult to see why the GAO is worried about our nation’s long-term stability. Well, that and the fact that the GAO found obvious problems with the reporting of expenditures:
The difference between the amount appropriated and DOD’s reported costs through April 2006 can generally be attributed to unreported costs for intelligence and Army modular force transformation, as well as funding for procurement, military construction, and research, development, test, and evaluation, which can be obligated over multiple years, that has not yet been obligated.
However, our prior work has found numerous problems with DOD’s processes for recording and reporting costs for GWOT, including long-standing deficiencies in DOD’s financial management systems and business processes, the use of estimates instead of actual costs, and the lack of adequate supporting documentation. For example, we found inadvertent double counting in a portion of DOD’s reported costs amounting to almost $1.8 billion from November 2004 through April 2005. Furthermore, DOD’s reported costs for GWOT operations overseas have grown steadily in each fiscal year through fiscal year 2005–from about $105 million in fiscal year 2001, to begin preparation for operations in Afghanistan, to about $81.5 billion in fiscal year 2005. With this steady growth, it is important to ensure that all commands seek to control costs to the extent possible.
One would think that the need for transparency and accuracy in the reporting of billions in taxpayer dollars would go without saying, but obviously the Bush administration hasn’t yet found it necessary to trouble themselves with these small details. And outside of the DoD, neither do any other government agencies:
However, U.S. government agencies, other than DOD, do not formally track all GWOT costs. This, along with DOD’s cost reliability and reporting problems, make it difficult for the decision makers to reliably know how much the war is costing, to determine how appropriated funds are being spent, and to use historical data to predict future trends.
They don’t formally track the costs? This is costing our nation over 100 billion a year, and we haven’t thought to require formal tracking of where and how this money is being spent?
The report goes on to describe that over 22 billion dollars have been spent in the last three years to train Iraqi soldiers and restore basic utilities to the country.
22 billion dollars. And what do we have to show for it?
To put this into perspective, let’s just look at the costs for this fiscal year, as of April:
- $22.5 billion in operating support, which pays for transportation, fuel, maintenance, housing, food, services, and other items;
- $5.3 billion for procurement of equipment and other items;
- $9.9 billion in military personnel costs, including special pays and allowances for deployed military personnel;
- $2.9 billion for personnel support, including clothing and medical support;
- $4.0 billion for transportation, including airlift and sealift;
- $2.6 billion in support for the Iraq Security Forces;
- $813 million for the Afghanistan Security Forces;
- $474 million in support of coalition forces.
Costs for the remainder of fiscal year 2006 are expected to be higher than DOD anticipated, in part because the Army has been unable to follow through with plans to close a number of forward operating bases and consolidate troops at some of the larger locations. Also, savings resulting from a United States and coalition hand-off of operations in Afghanistan to troops from nations representing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not expected to be realized until after fiscal year 2007.
And the future doesn’t look bright either. According to the GAO, they fully expect the costs of the Iraq War to skyrocket in the next few years. They outline the reasons why:
- Iraqi needs are greater than originally anticipated. In the next several years, Iraq will need an estimated $30 billion to reach and sustain oil capacity of 5 million barrels per day, according to industry experts and U.S. officials. For electricity, they will need $20 billion through 2010, according to the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration. Iraqi budget constraints and limited government managerial capacity limit its ability to contribute to future rebuilding efforts.
- There is widespread corruption in Iraq. Reconstruction efforts have not taken the risk of corruption into account when assessing the costs of achieving U.S. objectives in Iraq. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, Japan, and the European Union officials cite corruption in the oil sector as a special problem. In addition, according to State officials and reporting documents, about 10 percent of refined fuels are diverted to the black market, and about 30 percent of imported fuels are smuggled out of Iraq and sold for a profit.
- Future international contributions for Iraq may be limited. Most of the U.S. funds have been obligated and about 70 percent of the $13.6 billion in international pledges are in the form of loans.
- The new U.S. embassy will be costly. The embassy is projected to cost about $592 million, but the full cost of establishing a diplomatic presence across Iraq is still unknown.
I can’t bear to calculate how much %592 million dollars could help improve education in this country, but needless to say, I think we wouldn’t be seeing our nation’s education budget being gutted.
Finally, the GAO report concludes with what they began with: The Future.
The future is not bright with our current way of approaching the Global War on Terror. The costs of this unilateral approach to foreign policy is growing exponentially, and we will not be able to support these kinds of costs in the long run. Of course, the Bush administration has little reason to worry about this, as their term is over in two years and their ability to ignore the ramifications of their actions is now legendary. But for the proud men and women of our country who are fighting their battles for them, the future is not nearly as encouraging:
VA has estimated that a little more than 100,000 veterans from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are currently using VA health care services. VA originally underestimated by 77,000 the number of returning veterans who would use its health care, which in part required the VA to request additional appropriations in both fiscal years 2005 and 2006.
Long-term estimates of how many returning veterans will use VA health care and the costs of that care are imprecise for a variety of reasons, including uncertainty about the duration of operations in the theaters as discussed above. But, current levels of usage by returning servicemembers indicate a growing VA health care workload and costs. Furthermore, while we have no clear idea of the magnitude, there will undoubtedly be long-term financial commitments associated with payments to veterans with long-term disabilities.
Go read the rest of the report, and then consider what you can do to bring about a change in our nation’s future. Whether supporting a Congressional candidate financially, or walking door-to-door for your state representative, now is the time to be fighting for tomorrow. This is about your children, and their children, and this is about refusing to allow our country to slip into a death spiral of debt and destruction. The future is now, and we all have a responsibility to do what we can to defend it.
(Originally posted at Deny My Freedom and cross posted at My Left Wing and Daily Kos)