Lowballing the Costs of Iraq War

Administration fends off demands for war estimates

March 3, 2003

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The number of U.S. troops that would be required to administer Iraq after a U.S.-led military campaign is "not knowable" because of the large number of variables in how a conflict might unfold, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday.

He also said it "makes no sense to try" to come up with cost estimates for a war in Iraq because the variables "create a range that simply isn't useful."

Rumsfeld said the post-war troop commitment would be less than the number of troops required to win the war. He also said "the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark."

Administration sources told CNN the White House is working on an emergency spending plan and may ask Congress for as much as $95 billion.

In September, White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey estimated the cost of a war at more than $100 billion. After Lindsey was asked to resign in December, Mitch Daniels, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said it was impossible to know how much a war might cost.

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March 16, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted soundly on Thursday to give President Bush $92 billion more for Iraq, Afghanistan and Gulf Coast hurricane relief, despite bipartisan worries about the ballooning costs of the war and the recovery effort.

The bulk of the bill, $67.6 billion, would pay for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once approved, the money would boost to nearly $400 billion the total spent on the conflicts and operations against terrorism since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.