Current estimates go as high as $300 billion. That’s $300 billion dollars the invasion of Iraq is going to cost US taxpayers. Some day. Maybe more.
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UPDATE: As hilzoy wisely notes in the comments:
It will certainly be more. Since, as you note, this will just be added to the deficit, we will have to pay debt service on it. And anyone who has ever taken out a mortgage and looked at the total amount they will pay by the end of the 30 year term, and seen how very much more it is than the original price of the house (even at what my spam keeps assuring me are Today’s Low Rates!), knows that the debt service on $300 billion will be a lot of money.
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On Friday, October 11, 2002, Congress voted to authorize Bush to attack Iraq if Hussein refused to give up WMD as required by U.N. resolutions. Shortly after that we heard a range of estimates for what such action would cost.
In January 2003, the White House was downplaying reports that the effort could cost as much as $60 billion:
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels told The New York Times in an interview published Tuesday that such a conflict could cost $50 billion to $60 billion — the price tag of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
But Trent Duffy, an OMB spokesman, said Daniels did not intend to imply in the Times interview that $50 billion to $60 billion was a hard White House estimate.
"He said it could — could — be $60 billion," Duffy said. "It is impossible to know what any military campaign would ultimately cost. The only cost estimate we know of in this arena is the Persian Gulf War, and that was a $60 billion event."
Duffy also was careful to caution that President Bush had not made a decision to use military force against Saddam’s regime.
Bush economic adviser Larry Lindsey had estimated closer to $200 billion, but he was dumped by the White House. Apparently his skills at such estimates were not appreciated.
And we were told repeatedly that the recontruction costs would not come out of our pockets, but rather, those of the Iraqis:
- “Well, the reconstruction costs remain a very — an issue for the future. And Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is a rather wealthy country. Iraq has tremendous resources that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction.” Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (February 18, 2003)
- “There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.” Paul Wolfowitz [Source: House Committee on Appropriations Hearing on a Supplemental War Regulation, 3/27/03]
- “I don’t believe that the United States has the responsibility for reconstruction, in a sense…[Reconstruction] funds can come from those various sources I mentioned: frozen assets, oil revenues and a variety of other things, including the Oil for Food, which has a very substantial number of billions of dollars in it. Donald Rumsfeld [Source: Senate Appropriations Hearing, 3/27/03] (emphasis mine)
Compare that last statement, in particular, with this:
President Bush said Monday that seeing Iraq through reconstruction to a stable and secure democracy is a worthy cause that the United States will press regardless of whether its coalition partners remain there.
"The fundamental question is: Is it worth it? And the answer is, ‘Absolutely, it’s worth it for a free Iraq to emerge’," said Bush….
Bush considers it worth it.