$3 Billion Cost Of War A Bargain -- So Far

December 26, 2001|By William E. Gibson Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON — The cost to U.S. taxpayers of the war in Afghanistan could reach $3 billion, a burst of unexpected spending far less expensive than major conflicts of the past but still a burden to the precarious federal budget.

Each Tomahawk missile that swoops into the caves of Afghanistan costs about a million dollars. Each B-2 bomber costs $13,700 an hour to fly. Each "bunker-buster" bomb costs $145,000 -- about the same as the median price of an American home.

These war costs are just the tip of the iceberg when measuring the price of terrorism and its consequences.

The military operations overseas have been "cost-effective" compared to past wars, mounting to a mere $2.2 billion over the first two months, according to The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a non-partisan research group. Ongoing costs during a mopping-up phase could add another $200 million per month. That's all relatively cheap, compared to history's massive ground wars.

But this cost does not count homeland defense, government bailouts of airlines, new security expenses at home, anthrax testing, postal inspections, insurance and countless economic spinoffs that have been loosely estimated at a billion dollars a day.

The war abroad is the most obvious expense, but the mounting costs have not aroused controversy. The nation will simply have to bear these burdens, members of Congress said last week. "We were attacked at home. About 3,200 innocent citizens died. When you have to defend yourself in war, it's going to be a costly venture," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., a member of the Armed Services Committee. "Our entire country and way of life is being threatened, and we will spend whatever it takes to defend ourselves."

The military costs, though relatively efficient, further strain a federal budget already depleted by a big tax cut and a recession. Those costs will keep mounting as the war continues, in Afghanistan or elsewhere, forcing the federal government to run deficits, make deep cuts in domestic spending, or both.

New kinds of costs

This new kind of war has employed new kinds of firepower, some with daunting price tags. A Black Hawk helicopter that crashed in Pakistan cost $11 million. A Pave Low helicopter lost in Afghanistan was worth about $40 million.

Yet the expensive technology has kept total costs down, partly by effectively striking key targets, military analysts say. "In the narrow sense, some of these weapons are very expensive, but in the broader sense they are more cost-effective than old gravity bombs," said Steven M. Kosiak, budget analyst for The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The absence of much resistance from Taliban forces, particularly in the air, has kept costs down, and the use of Northern Alliance ground forces has spared the United States the vast expense of deploying tens of thousands of troops, tanks and heavy artillery for a land invasion.

The scale of the current conflict is substantially less than the Persian Gulf War, when the United States deployed roughly 250,000 troops in the region. U.S. forces in Afghanistan may reach closer to 2,000.

"What you have is a whole new different kind of war, best symbolized by special forces personnel riding on horseback with the Afghan forces and calling in targets for pinpoint air strikes," Nelson said. "It's low-tech combined with high-tech -- a much more surgical-strike kind of war. That in itself is a lot less costly than a land-mass war. As you develop new technology that is more expensive, in the long run it is less expensive because you are using technology in place of large land armies."

These costs bring potential economic benefits, including development of technology that can be applied to science and health care. But for the most part, this form of defense spending is unlikely to pry the sluggish economy out of the rut of recession, some economists and budget experts say.

"This isn't like an old-fashioned war, not one where you build five ships a day and 4,000 new tanks and hundreds of new airplanes," said Robert Reischauer, former director of the Congressional Budget Office. "We have more hardware than is necessary to fight the enemy that we confront. What is needed is intelligence and security measures, which stimulate the economy a little, but not in the same way as building masses of tanks and airplanes."

Past war costs

Historians generally credit the massive defense buildup during World War II for pulling the nation out of the Great Depression. Government spending and jobs programs under the New Deal helped millions of families survive hard times, but it took a great war to prompt an economic rebound.

Munitions factories demanded workers, the armed services absorbed the young and able-bodied, and women joined the workforce en masse. World War II may be an exceptional case, however. Other major wars also stimulated the economy, but with dire results.

Sun Sentinel Articles