Can We Say "LOGISTICS"?

Unforeseen Spending on Materiel Pumps Up Iraq War Bill

Tom Peters talks about "learning to fail quickly" because then we don't spend enourmous amounts of time, energy and money on wrong-headed plans and endeavors. While we must stay in Iraq at the moment, we must also recognize three important things that are the basis for our failure in Iraq:

1. We were wrong to go into Iraq in the first place and our wrong-headedness in that decision has cost us dearly... in terms of lives, injuries, long-term disabilities, national debt, international standing and our standing in the Middle East. We did not fully understand the culture of Iraq, the culture of the region, or the problems associated with Iraq itself.

2. We did not plan effectively when the decision to invade--that is, illegally invade--Iraq. We did not put enough troops on the ground. We did not have enough post-invasion materiel and building capacity in place when we "won" Baghdad. We did not fully comprehend the scope of the issues and problems that would confront our troops, our diplomats and our resources. We did not have financial, international and corporate resources in place before we went to Baghdad. Our planning stopped at predicting a photo opportunity onboard an aircraft carrier with a banner that read, "Mission Accomplished." We rushed a contract to Halliburton because they were friends of the Bush gang... and have failed to review that award, the service provided and the costs over three years. The price gouging that has occurred is even above the traditional screwing we have become accustomed to when dealing with the military-industrial complex. We are so used to being taken by defense contracts and defense contractors that when we see a bill for $500 for twenty liters of bottled water we don't even bother to blink any more.

3. We have not properly planned, assessed, controlled, budgetted or forecasted the costs of being "over there." It is here that we have no one to blame but ourselves because we have not been bitching loud enough to our congress critters about the costs... and they keep being the consistent "yes men" as long as Bush allows them to duck and cover from all the bad press about Abramoff scandals by creating other scandals that keep us distracted.

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.

"We did not predict early on that we would have the number of electronic jammers that we've got. We did not predict we'd have as many [heavily] armored vehicles that we have, nor did we have a good prediction about what our battle losses would be," Army Chief of Staff Peter J. Schoomaker recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Steven M. Kosiak, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments' director of budget studies, said, "If you look at the earlier estimates of anticipated costs, this war is a lot more expensive than it should be, based on past conflicts."

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.

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.

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.