Let’s run the numbers, shall we?
At the onset of war, the Pentagon’s chief financial officer said that postcombat operations in Iraq were expected to cost about $2.2 billion a month (the monthly “burn rate”). By early June, however, the Pentagon adjusted that forecast to $3 billion/month.
The average monthly burn rate from January 2003 to April 2003 for U.S. forces in the Iraqi theatre was $4.1 billion. This period encompasses most of the large-scale fighting in Iraq.
The actual monthly burn rate for July 2003, the early period of “postcombat” operations, was approximately $3.9 billion a month.
Today’s monthly burn rate is $4.7 billion. That’s more than we were spending, on average, at the “height” of the fighting.
Anecdotes are useful. Media reports are important. Always, however, follow the money.
Some quick back-of-the-napkin math here … that means we’re now painting about 2.14 times as many schools as expected!
Is it really surprising to learn that attempting to rebuild Saddam’s abused country is more expensive and difficult than defeating his army?
“Is it really surprising to learn that attempting to rebuild Saddam’s abused country is more expensive and difficult than defeating his army?”
Of course not. That’s why Rumsfeld, on Cheney’s order, approved Gen. Garner’s selection of Thomas Warrick, the best expert on rebuilding Iraq, to a prominent position on the reconstruction team.
“Is it really surprising to learn that attempting to rebuild Saddam’s abused country is more expensive and difficult than defeating his army?”
You’ll have to ask the people who were surprised, which evidently encompasses our key decision makers. Heartening, isn’t it?
Is it really surprising to learn that attempting to rebuild Saddam’s abused country is more expensive and difficult than defeating his army?
Hard to imagine.
Sebastian–
If the expense of the reconstruction is so unsurprising, doesn’t that means that the people who made the original lowball estimates were either incompetent or dishonest?
Remember, Andrew Natsios told us a year ago that reconstruction would cost American taxpayers something on the order of under $5 billion dollars. Total.
And I’m still sending my best friend the sergeant stuff like socks and sunscreen because that’s the only way he can get a lot of basic stuff over there. Hwaaaah?
Is it really surprising to learn that attempting to rebuild Saddam’s abused country is more expensive and difficult than defeating his army?
Sebastian —
(1) This is the Pentagon burn rate for military matters; and (2) yes, it is surprising, because the Pentagon estimated that costs would decrease after the fighting concluded and troops were brought home.
the Pentagon estimated that costs would decrease after the fighting concluded and troops were brought home.
Well, but Rumsfeld “estimated”* that the fighting would end and the troops would be brought home. And it didn’t. And they haven’t.
*Quote marks because Rumsfeld’s “estimates” appear to have been on the lines of “This is what we want to happen: show me numbers that fit what we want. Go away, Shinseki, you pessimist.”
Although Jesurgislac keeps insisting Shinseki was right, I’ve seen absolutely zero evidence that more troops would result in fewer deaths of Americans and Iraqis. Why do you think you’re right, Jesurgislac?
Well, the Pentagon seems to think more troops would be useful, for one. Abizaid is asking for another brigade or two, and they didn’t halt the rotation process for those army units for their health.
You know, Slart, some child psychologists recently discovered that babies actually seem to believe that you disappear when playing peek-a-boo with them.
Gee, Slarti, I don’t know. May have something to do with the persistent reports coming out of Iraq (for a year now) from the military on the ground that they have too few people to do what they need to do to keep occupied Iraq under safe control.
From the very beginning, with the looters in Baghdad, robbing hospitals, government offices, museums, shops. US army response: We don’t have the men to spare to protect these places.
Back nearly a year ago, Tacitus blogged about an incident where a ten year old boy had been arrested by the US army and held for weeks without his family even being informed where he was: Tacitus was justly angry, and said straightforwardly that the problem was undermanning.
About eight months ago, in the NYTimes, a reporter talked to a reservist who said that he and others had been put on duties that they hadn’t been trained to do, because the army had no alternative: there simply weren’t enough people.
Those and other stories, plus just a basic fact of life: Some jobs really do take a lot of people, and policing an entire country of 25 million people is one of them.
So tell me, Slarti: why are you so sure that the military experts who advised that more people would be needed were wrong, and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were right? Is it the shining success story that is Iraq today, or what?
Why is it that I ask a simple question about evidence for a point forcefully made, and get responses completely devoid of cites?
About eight months ago, in the NYTimes, a reporter talked to a reservist who said that he and others had been put on duties that they hadn’t been trained to do, because the army had no alternative: there simply weren’t enough people.
You know better than this. Don’t give me anecdotes.
So tell me, Slarti: why are you so sure that the military experts who advised that more people would be needed were wrong, and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were right? Is it the shining success story that is Iraq today, or what?
Why on earth do you think that? I ask you to defend your point, and you instead get all defensive on me. I have to say that’s doing the opposite of reassuring me that you have some idea of what you’re talking about.
Those and other stories, plus just a basic fact of life: Some jobs really do take a lot of people, and policing an entire country of 25 million people is one of them.
So, how many is “a lot”? Simple question; shouldn’t take a lot of thinking to come up with an answer.
500,000
Naw. I think at least a million.
See? I can make up numbers, too.
Sorry, 526,000 through 2005, to be more precise.
Better?
…at Kosovo levels. This is just comparing with prior efforts. Does anyone have an actual estimate, to within a factor of two, of what’s needed?
Does anyone have an actual estimate, to within a factor of two, of what’s needed?
Do you think Rumsfeld is googling right now to figure that out, too? And would it be scarier if he was or he wasn’t? I can’t decide.
Slarti, Shinseki’s original estimate was that 200 000 soldiers would be needed to keep the peace. (I’m linking to my livejournal post with multiple cites in it…)
Bluntly, when an expert says “You’ll need this, this, and this, to do the job properly” and a non-expert decides that in fact the job can be done properly with far less: tries it, and fails: I think this strongly suggests that the expert was right and the non=expert was wrong.
It could be that the failure happened for other reasons than the failure to provide what the expert thought would be necessary. And at the moment, all I have access to is what everyone else does: the many, many, many anecdotes coming out of Iraq that suggest strongly that the the Occupation is trying to do a difficult job with too few people to do it.
Hopefully, after Bush is no longer in power, and Rumsfeld and his other PNAC cronies are out, it will be possible to run a proper analysis of why the occupation of Iraq failed, and (eventually) the general public will get access to the reasons. There may be (probably are) other reasons besides the insufficient numbers.
But: General Eric Shinseki told the Senate armed services committee that the Bush Administration would need to keep a large force in Iraq even after a war to curb ethnic tensions and provide humanitarian aid.
Asked to name a figure, the four-star general said: “I would say that what’s been mobilised to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers.” (cite)
Whereas Wolfowitz: In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that “stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible,” but would oppose a long-term occupation force. And he said that nations that oppose war with Iraq would likely sign up to help rebuild it. “I would expect that even countries like France will have a strong interest in assisting Iraq in reconstruction,” Mr. Wolfowitz said. He added that many Iraqi expatriates would likely return home to help.
and Rumsfeld: Neither Mr. Rumsfeld nor Mr. Wolfowitz mentioned General Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, by name. But both men were clearly irritated at the general’s suggestion that a postwar Iraq might require many more forces than the 100,000 American troops and the tens of thousands of allied forces that are also expected to join a reconstruction effort. “The idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces I think is far off the mark,” Mr. Rumsfeld said. cite
So, how many is “a lot”? Simple question; shouldn’t take a lot of thinking to come up with an answer.
Shinseki suggested “the same number mobilized at the moment” – which was close to 300 000.
This Mark Kleiman post seems highly relevant to this discussion.
Indeed it does, and I hadn’t read it: thanks for the link.
Actually, Shinseki said “on the order of several hundred thousand”, which to me means anywhere from several tens of thousands to a few million. Technically speaking,
It also says he hadn’t sat down and figured out just how many he thought we needed, but at first glance a hundred thousand seemed too few. I don’t dispute that perhaps that’s the case, but I haven’t seen a decent case for more. Just discussions of historical precedent.
I actually don’t dispute the notion that more troops may be needed to provide security. Just that none of you have any more valid of an opinion than you think Rumsfeld has. If you’re going to spend a whole lot of time second-guessing, you’re going to have to do a little legwork to be a credible second-guesser.
And if you think (as one of the links I followed suggested) that we only have a little over a hundred thousand troops supporting the effort in Iraq, you’d be wrong.
Just wondering what the monthly cost of containment was?
Hint: less than 4.7 billion.
To throw in another anecdote…
What my friends in the military say is not that more troops are needed in Iraq. They don’t think that. But if we want to keep retention rates high we need more troops overall.
So not an increase in the number of troops in Iraq an increase in the size of our all volunteer force. Remember it is volunteer.
While the link is interesting and thoughtful he does seem to start of with a bad assumption.
If one believes most of the Iraqis are pacified and support the troops then his numbers are inflated.
If one believes that most Iraqis are unhappy that we are there then maybe his argument has some validity.
But from everything I can tell on the other side of the world and the opinion polls done in Iraq atleast 70% of the population supports us.
Then depending on whether you believe “most” Iraqis are glad we are there changes the numbers quite a bit.
Ok, let’s look at the usefulness of historical comparisons, shall we?
First, when we took Japan and Germany, we took them. I hear a lot of discussion about how we “conquered” Iraq, but the reality of it is we didn’t; we didn’t even get any sort of surrender. So in that respect, there’s no comparison at all. We conquered Japan and Germany as nations, we pounded away at their infrastructure long and hard; Iraq we merely beheaded. Yes, we killed civilians in the process, but we killed far more civilians in the subjugation of Germany and Japan.
And, yes, this does tend to throw the occupation ratio into an even worse light. But that’s an entirely different discussion. I think the comparison of the occupation of Iraq with prior occupations is completely invalid from this (as well as other (f’rinstance, we were planning reconstruction before we ever invaded; can we say the same about WWII Germany and Japan?) points of view.
Look, Slarti, Dobbins does a pretty good job of explaining why it’s valid to use past situations to help make decisions about what to do now. Unless you’re David Hume, that really ought to be good enough for you.
But hey, as Lavar Burton might say, you don’t have to take *my* word for it.
Just ask the US military:
That would’ve been a great cite; truly wonderful, had there been anything whatever about the U.S. military wanting more troops in Iraq.
Re: the Dobbins piece, can you summarize? How many troops does he say are needed? I looked through the whole piece, and couldn’t find anything resembling a recommendation. It’s an interesting compilation of information, if only to underscore that all of the occupations analyzed are quite different from one another.
The comparisons to make between the different wars are quite difficult to justify.
Let’s say we try to compare weapons used and other technologies…
Wouldn’t the comparisons start breaking down rather qiuckly.
I think the same could be said of the number of troop comparisons.
Maybe we would need the same number of troops relatively speaking in Iraq that we had in Japan or Germany, but we aren’t using the same technology anymore.
Btw, I am not sure that having 10,000 more troops or so would really hurt anything.
100,000 might make it harder on us in some ways.