Iraq War Cost

Was the U.S Iraq and Afghanistan War Worth the Cost?
Introduction
The U.S led Iraq and Afghanistan wars have received praises and criticisms of different measures. The war was fought for almost a decade, starting back in 2003. In the case of Iraq war, the cause of the conflict was suspicion by the United States and United Kingdom that Iraq had in its possession Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that it intended to use in case of war between nations. This was based on the past experience where Iraq had used WMD against Kurds. Despite the fact that an investigation by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) found no evidence of claims that Iraq indeed had WMD, The United States and United Kingdom went ahead and invaded Iraq on the 20th of
Taking a look at the state of the United States economy, this debt proved to be a burden to the already struggling economy. So much could have been done with the amount to help the economy of the United States to grow. As at now, the combined debt of the United States adds to trillions of dollars that continue to attract interest. Long after the end of the war, additional costs that are related to the aftermath continuer to pile. These include rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan, re-armoring the military, recruiting new soldiers and servicemen and war veteran’s payouts. Various categories of healthcare expenditure continue to cripple the taxpayer. The soldiers who suffered injuries continue being on treatment, which adds to the cost of the war. Some will continue to need lifetime support, like the ones who suffered brain injuries or other related injuries. This means that the government will continue to commit resources through round the clock care, rehabilitation and support to the veterans (Stiglitz, 2006). Analysts have put the total cost of the Iraq war to be less than 0.1% of the GDP. This means that no stimulus would be provided to the present day economy. Looking at the Bush administration’s commitment to the fiscal status of the country, it meant that what was committed to other sectors like health, education and research had to be cut down. This transferred the pain to the people whose living
The “Financial Times” magazine in 2007 revealed that Iraq could have almost double the reserves of oil than it had earlier been thought. The war thus meant that it could be hard in the future to deal with Iraq’s security even to matters that concerned its oil and by products. This means that the global prices of oil could be affected by the war as it had a direct affect to its production (Gafarli, 2007). The oil prices have since increased steadily and have continued to sell high since the war began. The prices of crude oil do not affect just the United States, but the entire world. A good example of a country that is suffering from this is India. India’s oil demand increases at a steady rate of 4-5 percent annually. Iraq has since ruled out any subsidized oil prices to India, stating that the law of the land does not allow them to do so. This has adverse effects on the economy of India as it imports about 20 million tons of oil from Iraq every year. This means that Iraq is the second largest supplier of oil crude oil to India (Lee,