President Bush’s “request” for another $46 billion in war funding on Monday helped tilt the estimate for the total cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan through the next decade just a smidge.
The Congressional Budget Office’s previous estimate put the wars’ cost at more than $1.6 trillion. The new estimate is around $2.4 trillion, or nearly $8,000 per man, woman and child in the country. The new estimate adds $705 billion in interest, noting that the wars are being funded with borrowed money.
Mind-boggling numbers, indeed. The CBO reported that as of Sept. 30, the wars have cost $604 billion. Before the invasion, the Bush administration estimated the Iraq war would cost no more than $50 billion. The word “estimate” now simply means “insert crazy number here.”
Surreal as the ever-growing war costs are, we are losing sight every time we focus only on the financial picture. What are the social and human costs behind smaller headlines, such as “Veteran stress cases up sharply” and “House backs plan to reduce vet suicides.” As the war stretches on, more troops and National Guard units are serving multiple tours of duty and extended deployments. They get much less leave from than mental health experts recommend.
USA Today reports that the number of war veterans seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder from the Department of Veterans Affairs jumped by nearly 20,000, or 70 percent, in the year ending June 30. The nearly 50,000 VA-documented PTSD cases far exceed the 30,000 military personnel that the Pentagon officially classifies as wounded, the paper reported.
More than 100,000 combat veterans have sought help since 2001. The numbers don’t include thousands treated at storefront Vet Centers, nor active-duty personnel diagnosed with the disorder or those who have not sought VA treatment.
In June, the military announced it would spend $33 million to add about 200 mental health professionals to help soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health needs. But troops were denied a recommendation made Army mental health experts that they receive a one-month break for every three months in a combat zone.
These hugely expensive wars keep asking the same people to sacrifice, over and over again.
The always-open-wallet funding of this never-ending war is frustrating. The men and women who are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and all veterans, deserve a financial and moral commitment to their well-being, during and after combat, not belated attempts at mental health catch-up.
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