home > by publication type > daily analysis > Tracking U.S. Dollars to Iraq
Email
| Prepared by: | Lionel Beehner |
|---|
Multiple audits have uncovered misuse and waste of reconstruction funds. (AP)
The cost of combat operations in Iraq has soared above $300 billion (PDF), even as hundreds of millions of dollars still go unaccounted for. This is partly due to poor postwar planning and the handing out of uncompetitive bids to private contractors. But it is also due to the opaque budgetary process by which U.S. military and reconstruction operations in Iraq (and Afghanistan) are funded. Instead of being included in the regular annual defense budget, many of these costs are included in supplemental requests, which receive little scrutiny from Congress, as this new Backgrounder explains.
Recent attempts at congressional oversight have actually become “a painful example of how little oversight there actually is,” writes Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information. Steven M. Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments agrees. “We are long past the point (PDF) where special supplemental appropriations, which are intended to cover the cost of unanticipated emergencies, should be used as the primary means of funding these operations,” he writes. Some experts expect with Democrats in control of at least one house of Congress, there will be increased oversight over military spending, and perhaps a shift away from relying on supplemental requests to finance combat operations in Iraq.
Meanwhile, multiple audits conducted by U.S. and other agencies point to waste and malfeasance involving funds slated for reconstruction. The most recent, conducted by a UN oversight agency, found that the Halliburton subsidiary KBR had charged the Iraqi government $25,000 per truck per month for 1,800 fuel trucks that, it turns out, sat largely unused (PDF) along the Iraqi border. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), in its quarterly audits since January 2004, has uncovered widespread corruption, incompetence, and red tape. Shoddy construction also remains a problem (a recent SIGIR report discovered human waste leaking from the ceilings of barracks used by Iraqi soldiers). Foreign Policy examines the major contracts awarded to various U.S. firms in Iraq.
To be sure, reconstruction is taking place under difficult security conditions in Iraq, but there is mounting concern about the scale of the problems. All told, U.S. taxpayers have spent some $38 billion to rebuild Iraq—though much of the country’s infrastructure remains at prewar levels and many Iraqis still lack adequate water, electricity, and heating oil. Meanwhile, Congress has sought to close SIGIR (Denver Post), which was originally established as a temporary outfit, by the end of next year (a SIGIR press spokesperson tells CFR.org its operations will be folded into the Departments of State and Defense). MSNBC calls the move a “’shoot the messenger’ coup de grace.”
So was the war worth it? It depends, says Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who directs CFR’s Center for Geoeconomic Studies. “War will be worth it only if the United States is ultimately safer than with a ruthless dictator still controlling Iraq,” he writes in the Financial Times, “but costs will remain an issue until such benefits become clear.” Journalist Ed Harriman, writing in the London Review of Books, reckons the war was not worth it because “the Coalition has created and fostered the least accountable and least transparent regime in the Middle East.” When all is said and done, some economists, most notably Linda Bilmes of Harvard University and Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University, estimate the final war bill could top $2 trillion (PDF), based on long-term healthcare costs for wounded vets, a sagging economy due to escalating oil prices, and higher recruitment costs to replenish a damaged military.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
Explore international efforts to curb nuclear proliferation with a new interactive from CFR's program on International Institutions and Global Governance.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
In War of Necessity, War of Choice, Richard N. Haass contrasts the decisions that shaped the conduct of two wars between the United States and Iraq involving the two presidents Bush and Saddam Hussein, and writes an authoritative, personal account of how U.S. foreign policy is made, what it should seek, and how it should be pursued.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba’s unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
As Ray Takeyh shows in Guardians of the Revolution, behind the famous personalities and extremist slogans of Iran is a nation that is far more pragmatic—and complex—than many in the West have been led to believe.
Complete list of CFR Books
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
The Canadian oil sands present an important challenge to policymakers: they promise energy security benefits but present climate change problems. Michael A. Levi assesses the energy security and climate change effects of the oil sands and makes recommendations for U.S. policymakers within the context of broader bilateral relations with Canada.
This report explores an important element of the maritime policy regime: the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Author Scott G. Borgerson examines the international negotiations that led to the convention, the history of debates in the United States over whether to join it, and the strategic importance of the oceans for U.S. foreign policy today.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.