Professor discusses cost of Iraq war

Mid-Missouri Peaceworks invited people to protest the war.

By Erica Zucco

Published April 11, 2008

By this past Tuesday, the cost of the war in Iraq had surpassed $500 billion. About 30 Columbia residents met that night for a presentation concerning the economic costs of the Iraq war.

After the presentation, representatives from Mid-Missouri Peaceworks invited people to volunteer for peaceful demonstrations and activities advocating the ending of the Iraq war.

Some attendees were members of the Columbia Peace Coalition, which sponsored the event, while others were just interested in learning more.

Attendee Alisa Booze Troetschel said she wanted to hear Diane Suhler, a finance and economics professor at Columbia College, speak about the economics of the war.

Suhler and Mid-Missouri Peaceworks Director Mark Haim presented information on the damages to the domestic economy that have come as a result of U.S. involvement in Iraq.

Suhler began the night’s discussion with an overview of macro-economic developments since 1989.

“Financing for war has primarily a negative effect on the economy,” Suhler said. “As we began to pay for the Iraq War, we also began to see very negative consequences on our domestic economy.”

Suhler noted the Peace Dividend of the early 1990s, a period in which funds were reallocated from militaristic budgets to programs that would spark economic growth.

Suhler said the Peace Dividend ended soon after the events of Sept. 11, when the government dramatically increased military spending and began to experience another deficit.

“Military spending brings an increase in the gross domestic product, but this increase isn’t sustainable,” Suhler said. “There’s no domestic capital formation. The money isn’t cycling within out nation, and that’s a very big part of the problem.”

Haim continued the presentation and referenced both economic and noneconomic costs.

“First and foremost, the Iraq war has caused us to lose soldiers, friends and family members,” Haim said. “But the economic costs are also very real and have a great impact.”

Haim referenced the book “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict,” by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, as a source for much of the information he presented.

“In many ways, I think its important for us to not just question Iraq, but all U.S. military spending,” Haim said.

Haim began by explaining that the Iraq war was “sold to citizens” as something that would be inexpensive and actually help the economy rather than damage it.

He discussed the interest on money borrowed for the war, and how the U.S. deficit is grows exponentially each day.

Haim mentioned an online calculator that holds a running total of how much the U.S. has spent as part of the Iraq war.

“The typical family spends more than $100 a month on this war,” Haim said.

Haim said a lot of the expenses incurred as a result of the war will have the greatest impact on students graduating from college in the next few years, who will be responsible for pulling the U.S. out of its deficit.

Booze Troetschel said she felt the presentation was eye opening, and that it was interesting to see the economic implications of the war on the nation as a whole and within individual families.

“The money spent has already been wasted,” she said. “Spending even more money is not going to bring back all of the men and women that died there, and I think its really time to end militaristic action.”