Recent Posts

• What have we learned from Iraq?
• Five Painful Lessons from the Iraq War
• Defense Dept is now the ONLY federal government agency to flunk its audit
• Ten Years in Afghanistan
• New Op-ed in Los Angeles Times by Bilmes and Stiglitz
• Recent commentary by the authors on the costs of 9/11
• Rising US death toll in Afghanistan: lessons from history
• Gloomy reports detail huge fraud, waste and corruption in contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan
• NY Times looks at rising cost of veterans care
• Brown University study estimates cost of wars at $3.7 Trillion since 2001
• Congress considers legislation that would require estimates of the true cost of war
• Stiglitz Bilmes new book chapter in the Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict
• Wars are one of the main reasons why the US debt is so high
• Reprint: Washington Post article on the true cost of war
• British withdraw from Iraq

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What have we learned from Iraq? Boston Globe THIS MONTH, after nearly nine years, the American war in Iraq is finally drawing to a close. At its peak, 170,000 Americans were stationed in more than 500 military bases across the country. In total, more than 2 million US troops have served in Iraq; now we are down to the last 18,000, with hundreds leaving every day. With the end of the war looming, we can say for certain that the total cost will be at least $4 trillion. This figure could climb much higher, depending on the number of veterans who require long-term care, the cost of replacing equipment, and the full social and economic impact of the war. The human toll has been equally high: 4,486 Americans have been killed in Iraq, 32,000 wounded in action, and tens of thousands seriously injured. More than one-third of recent veterans report having a service-connected disability. Despite a concerted effort to train Iraqi forces and help reconstruct the country, Iraq remains insecure and politically unstable, with constant threats from Shi’ite militias loyal to Iran, as well as Sunni militants such as Al Qaeda. Millions of Iraqis are still displaced from their homes, either living in exile outside the country or unable to return to their old neighborhoods after the sectarian violence of 2005 to 2007. Meanwhile, the balance of power in the region, which President Bush hoped to tip in favor of the West, is precarious and depends on many factors outside US control. Amid this gloomy picture it is timely to ask what lessons the war should hold for America. Read More

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/us/28veterans.html

The Watson Institute at Brown University, funded by the Eisenhower Institute, has published a wide-ranging new study of Iraq and Afghanistan war costs that was compiled by some 20 academic contributors and led by Professors Catherine Lutz (Brown) and Neta Crawford (Boston University).  Contributors include Andrew Bacevich (BU) , Winslow Wheeler (Center on Defense Information), Anita Dancs (National Priorities Project), Ryan Edwards (Queens College, NYU) and many others.  Linda Bilmes wrote the section of the report that estimates the costs attributable to veterans medical care and disability benefits.

The study focused particularly on war costs that have occurred (or been incurred but not yet paid) during the past decade since September 11, 2011.  It features important new work on the casualties and costs to defense contractors, and the social impact on military families.   The section by Winslow Wheeler analyzes the increases in the defense base budget over the past decade.  Portions of the report focus on costs to Iraq and to the region.   The website includes a range of charts and tables.    The study covers overlapping, but somewhat different ground, from the Stiglitz-Bilmes study.

SEE: http://costsofwar.org/

Watch testimony of Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes

Read full testimony: http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?newsid=632.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has finally made the sensible decision to simplify the eligibility for veterans to obtain disability compensation benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  This is a move that we have championed for the past three years, since the medical community has confirmed that returning veterans are suffering from an “epidemic” of PTSD.  We applaud the VA for making this change.

The previous VA system had forced veterans to prove that their PTSD was triggered by  a specific traumatic incident during service, which was often difficult or impossible given the chaos that typically surrounds an IED explosion or other traumatic episode.  Additionally, one-third of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have served multiple deployments and their PTSD is cumulative and cannot be easily traced to a specific incident.  The immediate effect of this change will enable veterans to claim benefits more quickly and easily and with less delay.

The change will accelerate the payment of benefits to hundreds of thousands of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, and it will enable tens of thousands more, who were previously ineligible to receive benefits (because they couldn’t pinpoint the source of their PTSD)  to receive benefits.  The medical community estimates that 15-20% of veterans are suffering from PTSD; therefore this cohort will now receive a monthly cash benefit.   The long-term cost of this was already anticipated in our cost estimates, as we had expected that all veterans with PTSD would eventually receive compensation.  However, this change will accelerate the uptake of benefits and should therefore add at least $10 billion to the long-term cost of veterans disability compensation.

See Q&A on this issue here.

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