does anyone here realize the Al-Jaqueera's numbers are way off?

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo does anyone here realize the Al-Jaqueera's numbers are way off?

doesn't mean they arent a reliable source man! jeez, lay off my nuts.

quote:

Originally posted by Sunsnail doesn't mean they arent a reliable source man! jeez, lay off my nuts.

no. i mean star-traveller's first post was a Al-Jaqueera article followed immediately by another article that has a much different Iraq war estimate.

Al-Jaqueera's = $245bln
rest of the world = $145bln tapering to $50bln

your nuts are safe.

wait wait wait.

this includes projected estimate budgeted for 2009. don't mind me.


NO! edit> i take that back all i can see is $141bln for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last edited by Q5echo on Feb-06-2007 at 05:14

Ah yes ... according to the Bush tried and tested "stay the course" and things will always get better accounting methodology, we'll be spending a measly $100 billion more on this picnic ...

quote:

$100B war cost based on status quo POSTED: 0931 GMT (1731 HKT), February 5, 2007 WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration's projected cost of more than $100 billion per year for the war in Iraq assumes that operations "will continue pretty much as they are" over the next two years, the White House's budget chief has said. "We, of course, hope that that's not the case," Budget Director Rob Portman said Sunday. He said administration officials believe President George W. Bush's plan to halt the spread of sectarian warfare with another 21,500 American combat troops will begin to bring costs down. Portman said the cost of that new deployment is included in the $100 billion in new spending Bush will seek Monday from Congress to pay this year's tab for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. About 90 percent of that money would go to pay for the war in Iraq, now nearly four years old, he told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer." "By increasing our military presence in Iraq through the so-called surge, putting additional brigades in place, we are hoping that we will begin to quell some of this sectarian violence," Portman said. The $100 billion is in addition to the $70 billion Congress approved for war spending in 2006. In addition, Bush will seek about $145 billion for the 2008 fiscal year, which begins in October, when he presents his budget to Congress -- the first time Bush has included war costs in the regular budget. And the projected costs for 2009, the last year for which the administration has produced an estimate, run about $50 billion. Before now, the administration has used supplemental funding requests for most of the roughly $400 billion spent in Iraq, a practice that many in Congress say understates the war's impact on the Treasury. "We've really dishonestly funded this war," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., an increasingly outspoken opponent of Bush's handling of the conflict. Portman said the president's budget will show lawmakers "a lot of detail" about where the money will go, "and we're also going to do it in a way where Congress has the opportunity to have its oversight responsibilities discharged." Along with paying for additional troops, Bush has said he will increase support for reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Lawmakers have authorized more than $30 billion in reconstruction funds so far, but the effort has been plagued by numerous reports of waste and fraud. "I think some corrections have been made to avoid this going into the future," Portman said. "There was a report recently by the special inspector general in Iraq about some of that waste over the last several years, but we believe we have the controls in place now to do a better job going forward." http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/05/bush.war/

And then there are those other costs that you always forget about when you go to war ...

quote:

Care for U.S. veterans could cost $662 bln-study 02 Feb 2007 18:51:09 GMT Source: Reuters BOSTON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Medical costs for U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could range from $350 billion to $662 billion over the next 40 years, as soldiers survive injuries that would have killed them in past conflicts, according to a Harvard University study. Due to improvements in battlefield medicine and equipment, there are now about 16 "nonmortally wounded" soldiers for every death, far more than the 2.6 soldiers wounded per death in Vietnam, the study said, citing Department of Veterans' Affairs data. The author of the study, Linda Bilmes, a lecturer at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, presented her findings at an academic conference in January. They were released publicly by the university this week. The potential costs include medical care, disability payments and other benefits paid to injured veterans and assume that 44 percent of veterans eventually claim disability. That was the percentage of claims from the first Gulf War. Bilmes' calculations assume that by 2016, 2 million soldiers will have participated in these wars. Spending on health care has been on the rise in the United States in recent years and now accounts for more than 15 percent of the U.S. economic output, according to data from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit group that funds research on health care.

Hmmm this brings back memories of a thread I posted almost one year ago to the day that stated the total war cost could top $1 trillion:

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...t=iraq+trillion

What happened to the economist who provided the estimate in my original thread? The same thing that happens to any voice of reason in this administration of course:

quote:

Back in 2002, the White House was quick to distance itself from Lindsey's view. Mitch Daniels, director of the White House budget office, quickly called the estimate "very, very high." Lindsey himself was dismissed in a shake-up of the White House economic team later that year, and in January 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the budget office had come up with "a number that's something under $50 billion." He and other officials expressed optimism that Iraq itself would help shoulder the cost once the world market was reopened to its rich supply of oil. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/

You go you spend and spend "republicans"! Way to erode the economy and your tax dollars for your children.

___________________
Retro ...

quote:

George Bush Arms Himself with Dollars // White House Unveils Its New War Chest Yesterday US President George Bush presented his budget for 2008 to Congress. The president, aware of the abysmal depths to which his approval ratings have sunk, is prepared to go to any lengths necessary to win the love of the electorate. And judging from what he plans to spend the government's money on in the next year, the president is planning to boost his popularity with a new war. Since the Democratic victory in the last congressional elections, every conversation on Capitol Hill eventually turns into a pitched battle between supporters and opponents of President Bush. By this point, Mr. Bush certainly has no shortage of the latter, and torpedoing presidential initiatives has become something of a fashion of late. The tensest face-off between Republicans and Democrats in the year ahead, however, promises to be over the new budget, which was presented to Congress yesterday by President Bush. The new $2.9 trillion budget is for the 2008 fiscal year, which will start in the US on October 1 of this year. This will be the first time in his tenure in office that the president will have to try to ram his budget past a hostile Democrat-controlled Congress. The Democratic Party has traditionally enjoyed reminding the current president of the budget surplus that was bequeathed to him by his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, and this year George Bush again finds himself claiming defensively that a budget operating in the black is one of the main goals of his economic policy. According to the budget that he presented to Congress yesterday, the deficit could be tamed completely by 2012. The number one item in Mr. Bush's latest budget is war. And, judging from his financial plans, not just a continuation of the war he is already embroiled in but an expansion of US military operations. In the next year, on top of the approximately $70 billion already earmarked for military expenditures, the White House is asking for an additional $100 billion for the war in Iraq and the struggle against global terrorism. The administration promises that a year from now Iraq and other military operations will require only $145 billion and that two years from now the sum will be even lower – only $50 billion. Of course, these numbers come with one tiny, insignificant proviso attached: if the situation in Iraq and elsewhere deteriorates instead of improving, those expenditures can only rise. In total $481 billion will go for defense, which is close to the historic maximum spent by Lyndon Johnson on the Vietnam War, even accounting for inflation. The White House calculates that the war in Iraq will cost American taxpayers around $300 million over the next two and a half years. Those who stand to gain from the new budget are companies working on American overseas military bases, such as Boeing and Halliburton. Another important aspect of the new American budget is its particular interest in energy conservation and in companies that are searching for new sources of energy. Companies that are engaged in developing alternative sources of energy will be extremely pleased by President Bush's new budget, which promises hefty subsidies. The main recipients of the government's largesse will be companies that are working on producing an ethanol-based fuel, such as Archer Daniels Midland, VeraSun Energy, and Pacific Ethanol of California. In order to achieve a budget surplus by 2012, the White House is proposing to cut $100 billion in funds for various social programs. In order to find the money to continue his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while staying one step ahead of a looming deficit, Mr. Bush, who claimed during his second presidential campaign that social issues are his top priority, intends to slash funding either wholly or in part for 141 federal programs, which will save the government around $12 billion over the next five years. Two other programs that are facing big cuts are Medicare, which provides health insurance to 43 million elderly Americans, and Medicaid, which provides healthcare for children from poor families. Together, cutbacks for these two programs will add $66 billion to the government's war chest over the next five years. George Bush's budget also anticipates that the tax breaks introduced by his administration during his first year in office will become permanent – something that is likely to be a stumbling block for the Democrats, who have made no secret of their plans to roll back Mr. Bush's tax cuts as soon as the legislation expires in 2010. Given that the election campaigns for next year's presidential elections are already up and running, the budget will undoubtedly become a favorite target for pre-election mudslinging, particularly at the upcoming Democratic Party Caucus. The candidates' tactics promise to be familiar: the Republican front-runners, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, will faithfully support the president but will try to distance themselves as much as possible from his plans in order to avoid sharing any responsibility for his failures, while leading Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, will do their best to make sure that George Bush's political house of cards collapses around his ears. Mr. Bush stumped for support for his budget, the details of which take up four massive tomes, at a meeting with House Democratic members in Williamsburg, Virginia. "My formula for balancing the budget reflects our country's priorities at this point in time: securing our homeland, combating terrorism, supporting a strong economy while keeping taxes low, and continuing to keep expenditures under control while increasing the effectiveness of federal programs," said President Bush. The president, who racked up a $248 billion deficit last year, emphasized that the White House and Congress should work together to strike a working balance between income and expenditures. "Some of you will like the budget, and some of you won't. You all have your own ideas, but I hope that we will be able to work together to achieve the main goal of erasing the deficit," said Mr. Bush to the assembled legislators. The Democrats are well aware that the adoption of the budget will be a vote of confidence in George Bush's foreign policy, as part of which he has his eye on forcing regime change in Iran. The White House will see a green light for its expansive new plans if the Defense Department receives the funds allocated in the new budget, and of course it will be the next – presumably Democratic – administration that will be stuck with the consequences. Thus, the Democrats in control of Congress will pull out all the stops to minimize the threat posed by Mr. Bush's latest project.

George Bush Arms Himself with Dollars

What do you think about that?

quote:

Originally posted by star-traveller What do you think about that?

you first.

quote:

Originally posted by star-traveller George Bush Arms Himself with Dollars What do you think about that?

That you have nothing to say really about anything except post other's viewpoints and wait to trounce on someone that does not agree with you. Typical really of your posts. Nothing but vomited tripe with no real soloutions excpet to blame everything on the US.

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo you first.

Well, I think he has nothing left to do, but keep this war going on.
It the only one card he has left to play to be able to stay at the wheel until his time runs out.

The thing I don't understand is why Democracts keep quite and do nothing about it. Why do they prefer listen a bullshit from him and keep quitely support all he is doing.

And about the budget, I really wonder what are those 141 federal programs he wants to cut the finance for.

quote:

Originally posted by LazFX That you have nothing to say really about anything except post other's viewpoints and wait to trounce on someone that does not agree with you. Typical really of your posts. Nothing but vomited tripe with no real soloutions excpet to blame everything on the US.

Read it again. It doesn't even have anysense what is written there.