Economic Cost of War

Keyanna Spears
3/1/09
2:01pm
www.nytimes.com
The Economic Cost of War
On Friday, President Obama gave a speech to the Marines at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. He mentioned his timeline in which our troops will be pulling out of Iraq. The success of pulling the troops out of Iraq will depend on the budget of the US. The estimated cost of the war is $860 billion, and President Obama criticized these spending habits when he was a candidate for office so now that he is the President he proposed a ten year budget plan. This plan will prepare for the estimated cost of withdrawal for the troops as well as rebuilding our economy. The anticipation of the war ending may begin to help rebuild the economy by easing the minds of consumers and investors. However, President Obama’s budget plan is not a receiving a thumbs up across the board. The cost of the war was never made clear with former President Bush causing there to be worries about the true cost of war. One thing that everyone can agree on though is that the delaying of troops will increase the amount of money spent during the war. In 2006 the estimated cost for each American troop overseas was $390,000 a year. So as one can see, this war is playing a huge role in the recession that we are in and the sooner they are out of Iraq the sooner we can began to rebuild our economy. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t rush the withdrawal until the Iraqi military is able to defend their country. This is why some troops will still be in Iraq until 2011. President Obama announced that the bulk of the troops will be out of Iraq by 2010, but he doesn’t want to have a relapse therefore some troops will have to stay an extra year.