Iraq war costs continue to climb

A U.S. Army Humvee passes the wreckage of a car bomb in Baghdad on April 3. Karim Kadim / AP

Well, here's a new story that we've always known about. You want another example of how the Bush administration is using up our military, well here it is. This is off MSNBC News:

With the expected passage this spring of the largest emergency spending bill in history, annual war expenditures in Iraq will have nearly doubled since the U.S. invasion, as the military confronts the rapidly escalating cost of repairing, rebuilding and replacing equipment chewed up by three years of combat.

The cost of the war in U.S. fatalities has declined this year, but the cost in treasure continues to rise, from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006, according to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The U.S. government is now spending nearly $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from $8.2 billion a year ago, a new Congressional Research Service report found.

Annual war costs in Iraq are easily outpacing the $61 billion a year that the United States spent in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972, in today's dollars. The invasion's "shock and awe" of high-tech laser-guided bombs, cruise missiles and stealth aircraft has long faded, but the costs of even those early months are just coming into view as the military confronts equipment repair and rebuilding costs it has avoided and procurement costs it never expected.

The issue will be hotly debated next week when the Senate takes up a record $106.5 billion emergency spending bill that includes $72.4 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The House passed a $92 billion version of the bill last month that included $68 billion in war funding. That funding comes on top of $50 billion already allocated for the war this fiscal year.

Defense officials and budget analysts point to a simple, unavoidable driver of the escalating costs. The cost of repairing and replacing equipment and developing new war-fighting materiel has exploded. In the first year of the invasion, such costs totaled $2.4 billion, then rose to $5.2 billion in 2004. This year, they will hit $26 billion, and could go as high as $30 billion, Kosiak said. On the other hand, at about $15 billion, personnel costs will drop 14 percent this year.

Total operations and maintenance budgets will rise 33 percent this year, while investment in new technologies will climb 25 percent, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The helicopters, tanks, personnel carriers and even small arms "have required more maintenance than we planned for," said Gary Motsek, director of support operations at the Army Materiel Command. "We're working them to death."

So not only are we using up our soldiers with their extended tours in Iraq, and with the failure of the military's recruitment drives, now we have to contend with the complete breakdown of military equipment and their costs for repairing or replacing that equipment.

This is what happens when you go to war on the cheap.

What angers me is that the Democrats can impose a serious opposition to this disastrous war, but they have repeatedly failed to do so. Consider this:

The bill is the fifth emergency defense request since the Iraq invasion in March 2003. Senate Democrats say that, in the end, they will vote for the measure, which congressional leaders plan to deliver to President Bush by Memorial Day. But the upcoming debate will offer opponents of the war ample opportunity to question the Bush administration's funding priorities.

If you want to pull the troops out of Iraq, then cut the funding for the war. Stop voting for these damn emergency defense requests! Of course, this is a pipe dream, since the Democrats will never cut the war budget--even if they do capture control of Congress. For if they try to cut out the emergency defense requests, the Republicans will label the Democrats as traitors, who are willing to surrender to the terrorists--which is complete nonsense. And since the Democrats also want to appear tough in the Bush Great War on Terrorism, they will capitulate on Iraq. And the war in Iraq will continue on.