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New Afghan War Plans Could Cost US Taxpayers an Extra $125 Billion
by: Ben Arnoldy | The Christian Science Monitor | Report
New Delhi – As leaders at the NATO summit in Lisbon meet this weekend to discuss strategy in Afghanistan, US war planners have been signaling that troop withdrawals set to begin in 2011 will be mostly symbolic and that the handover to Afghan forces in 2014 is “aspirational.”
Such could cost American taxpayers handsomely at a time when deficit cutting has gripped Washington. According to one estimate, softening those deadlines could add at least $125 billion in war spending – not including long-term costs like debt servicing and health care for veterans.
“I don’t think anyone is seriously talking about cutting war funding as a way of handling the deficit,” says Todd Harrison, a defense funding expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. But higher war costs “could hurt the base defense budget [and] the rest of the discretionary budget.”
A Shift in US Deadlines
Currently there are some 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan, which includes the 30,000 troop surge announced by President Obama in December 2009. At that time, the president also said the US would “begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.”
Such was interpreted by many Americans and Afghans to be a significant withdrawal in 2011. In recent months, with the situation in Afghanistan showing few signs of stabilizing, US officials have focused more on 2014 as the date for withdrawal.
Speaking at the NATO summit in Lisbon, Mr. Obama described the timeline as “a transition to Afghan responsibility beginning in 2011 with Afghan forces taking the lead for security across Afghanistan by 2014.”
But the Pentagon on Thursday said the goal of handing over security duties to the Afghans in 2014 was “aspirational.”
“Although the hope is, the goal is, to have Afghan security forces in the lead over the preponderance of the country by then, it does not necessarily mean that … everywhere in the country they will necessarily be in the lead,” said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.
Crunching the Numbers
So how much extra would it cost if the bulk of the withdrawal starts rather than finishes around 2014? About $125 billion, says Mr. Harrison at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, at that’s just through 2014. He uses two different troop level scenarios – one high, and one low. He calculates costs based $1.1 million per soldier per year, which reflects the five-year average in Afghanistan.
The lower cost – $288 billion – assumes that the troops involved in Obama’s surge would be withdrawn by 2012, and that by the end of 2014 only 30,000 US troops would remain. The higher cost – $413 billion – assumes no drawdown will happen until 2013, and 70,000 US troops would remain by the end of 2014. The difference: $125 billion.
Another defense analyst, Anthony Cordesman with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, has a slightly higher estimate at $441 billion. That jumps to $476.5 billion by including State Department expenses and immediate medical costs for veterans.
But he says nothing can be read into the talk about 2014.
“The nice thing about 2014 politically is that by then you’ve either won, in which case the deadline doesn’t really matter anymore … or if you haven’t succeeded you are out any way,” Dr. Cordesman says.
Both Harrison and Cordesman caution that future cost estimates are difficult to make.
“There’s no good way of doing it,” says Harrison. “It depends on intensity of operations, the number of troops we have deployed, and it also depends on the mission that we give them.”
Some missions are more costly. For instance, the Pentagon has reportedly decided to dispatch tanks to Afghanistan for the first time in the war. That will add to the price tag given the fuel and transport costs.
“The enemy [also] gets a voice how much this is going to cost us,” says Harrison.
War Spending in Cost-Conscious Washington
For its part, the Defense Department has not tipped its hand to the bean counters. Pentagon estimates for supplemental budget requests for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) – Afghanistan and Iraq – contain low placeholders of $50 billion annually starting in 2012. The request for 2011 is $159 billion.
The guessing game over the OCO does not factor in all the total costs of a war. One of the biggest unknowns is the cost of medical care for veterans decades down the line. Economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes have argued that health care for Iraq war veterans will top $600 billion. Other costs beyond operations, like debt servicing and macroeconomic factors, could drive that war’s total cost over $3 trillion.
In Afghanistan, the US will also be paying for many years to support the Afghan security forces that it trains because their cost exceeds Kabul’s revenues.
But focusing solely on the OCO costs, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost a combined $1.1 trillion to date. Adjusting for inflation, that’s more than any US conflict except World War II.
Cordesman points out that as a percentage of GDP, current defense spending and war costs are historically low. Iraq and Afghanistan together consume about 1.2 percent of America’s GDP. By contrast, in their peak years of conflict, World War II consumed 35.8 percent of American GDP and the Vietnam War consumed 2.3 percent of GDP.
Harrison, too, says the $125 billion over four years is nowhere near the scale of the US’s annual trillion-plus deficit.
But others say war spending will heat up as a topic in deficit-conscious Washington – particularly when the Pentagon has to put forth real numbers early next year rather than placeholders for 2012 war spending.
“When that happens in a Congress where they are counting every penny – or I guess every billion – to suddenly show up and say we kind of misestimated this, it’s going to be triple what we said, that’s going to be embarrassing to say,” says Charles Knight, co-director Project on Defense Alternatives.
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WikiLeaks Announces Release 7x the Size of the Iraq War
Picture of Julian Assange during a talk at 26C3
Logs
WikiLeaks has announced an important release on its Twitter account, claiming it’ll be seven times bigger than the Iraq war logs, which are widely considered to be the biggest military leak in history.
“Next release is 7x the size of the Iraq War Logs. intense pressure over it for months. Keep us strong” was the message posted to the Wikileaks Twitter account earlier today.
The message was followed by an even bolder statement two hours later: “The coming months will see a new world, where global history is redefined.”
WikiLeaks is an organization that publishes submissions of otherwise unavailable documents, keeping the sources anonymous. It has published nearly 500,000 secret U.S. documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Recently, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange found himself in the center of a rape scandal. The rape charges against him were initially dropped, but the case still looms over Assange’s head, with the Swedish court recently approving a motion to bring him into custody for questioning.
No details about the upcoming release have been revealed, but the fact that it was mentioned in the same context as the Iraq war logs points to another military-related leak. What do you think Wikileaks will announce? Please, share your opinions in the comments.
Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Canada considers extending Afghanistan mission
8 November 2010 Last updated at 13:33 ET
More than 150 Canada is poised to extend its military commitment in Afghanistan for three years beyond a withdrawal deadline of July 2011, officials have said.
The Conservative-led government may leave non-combat troops to support a Nato training mission, officials said.
Canada has about 3,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Canada has come under international pressure not to pull out at a time when the US is boosting its military commitment.
The Canadian Press agency reported Prime Minister Stephen Harper was expected to make a decision before a Nato summit in Lisbon on 18 November.
“Knowing that the mission in Afghanistan has work that is yet to be done, we are now considering this,” Defence Minister Peter MacKay told reporters on Sunday. “Training is an option and it’s something we’re very good at.”
The troops would train Afghan army and police units, Mr McKay said.
‘US targets civilians in Kandahar’
A human rights group says civilian casualties have spiked since operations started in Kandahar province in early September.
The Afghan Rights Monitor (ARM) says the US-led campaign in Kandahar has destroyed or damaged hundreds of houses.
It says US-led NATO forces have used aerial bombings, hidden booby traps and mines in private homes.
According to the rights group, most of the attacks have been carried out in areas that hold about one-third of Kandahar province’s population.
Tens of thousands of Afghan and foreign troops have been fighting the Taliban in Kandahar province to flush militants out of the region.
The developments come as the US and its allies step up a bombing campaign in the troubled southern Afghanistan.
US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan are currently continuing with their massive military operation in the volatile region.
Witnesses have recently told Press TV that NATO forces have dropped more bombs on villages they assume Taliban militants are hiding in, inflicting extensive damage to civilian properties.
The Western military alliance says it is experimenting with a new powerful bomb during the operation.
More than one-hundred thousand Afghans have been killed since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.
The loss of civilian lives at the hand of foreign forces has led to a dramatic increase in anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan.
There are currently more than 150,000 US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan.
US-led forces have stepped up attacks in Afghanistan under Washington’s new war strategy that aims to reduce its military presence next year.
JR/MB
Somalia tops the most corrupt list
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Militants torch NATO trucks in Pakistan
Police say the gunmen targeted two vehicles in Dasht Bado town in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province on Tuesday.
The attack comes a day after three NATO supply trucks were set on fire in the same province.
Two men riding a motorbike set fire to the tankers after “forcing the drivers and their helpers to leave,” Reuters quoted a police official as saying.
Dozens of NATO supply tankers and trucks have been set on fire in Pakistan this month.
Pro-Taliban militants usually claim responsibility for such attacks. They argue that the assaults are in retaliation for non-UN-sanctioned US drone strikes on Pakistan’s tribal region.
Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants have stepped up attacks on convoys carrying supplies for US-led forces.
DB/MB/MMN
US-led airstrike kills 18 in Afghanistan
NATO issued a statement, saying that the Sunday airstrike targeted a senior Taliban commander in Baghlan Province but added that it could not be verified whether the target had been killed in the attack.
Meanwhile, eye-witnesses and local sources said all those killed in the attack were civilians.
Afghan officials have repeatedly demanded a halt to the attacks. Hundreds of civilians have lost their lives in US-led airstrikes and ground operations in different parts of the war-ravaged country over the past months.
A large number of civilians have fallen victim to the air raids since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
Civilian casualties caused by NATO attacks are a major source of tension between the US-led foreign forces and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is under increasing pressure at home over the unpopular war.
The loss of civilian lives at the hand of foreign forces has dramatically increased anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan.
JR/CS/MMN
Taliban say they are not talking to Karzai government
Afghan President Hamid Karzai meets with Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld in the Pentagon on ...
| October 14, 2010
KABUL: The Afghan Taliban said on Wednesday that they were not talking to President Hamid Karzai’s government; rejecting recent media reports the two sides were in secret negotiations to end a war now in its 10th year. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid also repeated a long-standing demand for foreign forces to leave the country, saying reports of peace talks when troops were still battling insurgents on the ground would only undermine the credibility of the government and its foreign backers. “If the enemy insists on continuation of the war in the battlefields but on the other hand merely disseminates propaganda and contradictory claims about high-level talks, then it will only contribute first and foremost to the enemy’s already losing credibility,” he added. The Washington Post reported earlier this month that representatives of the Taliban and Karzai’s government had started secret talks, citing unnamed Afghan and Arab sources. The sources were quoted as saying they believe the Taliban representatives were authorised to speak for the Afghan Taliban organisation. reuters
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:: Article nr. 70741 sent on 14-oct-2010 00:02 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=70741
Link: www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\10\14\story_14-10-2010_pg7_7
:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this website.
Taliban capture US base in Afghanistan
They also said that the Americans fled the military outpost in Kunar’s Marawara district in helicopters on Monday.
A senior Taliban commander said the group is now in full control of the district where the outpost is located.
He added that the militants attacked the outpost with rockets and machine guns.
Taliban say the ensuing clashes forced the US forces stationed there to flee.
The militants say they have seized all weapons and munitions left behind in the outpost.
A Press TV correspondent says the US military has not yet commented on the attack.
HSH/HRF/JR/AKM/MMN
Nato contractors ‘attacking own vehicles’ in Pakistan
In the ali musjia gorge, khyber pass
Nato supply convoys travelling through Pakistan to Afghanistan have regularly come under attack in the past, but following Pakistan’s decision to block their route through the Khyber Pass, they now face an even bigger security threat.
Hundreds of tankers and trucks have been left stranded on highways and depots across Pakistan, with little or no security.
Taliban militants have regularly been targeting the convoys, even when they are heavily protected.
But many believe it is not just the militants who pose a security threat to the convoys.
The owners of oil tankers being used to supply fuel to Nato in Afghanistan say some of the attacks on their convoys are suspicious.
They say there is evidence to suggest that bombs have been planted in many of vehicles by the “Nato contractors” – individuals or companies who have been contracted by Nato to supply fuel and goods to forces in Afghanistan.
The contractors subsequently hire the transporters who then carry the goods.
Selling fuel
Dost Mohammad, an oil tanker owner from Nowshera district, said a Nato contractor had recently been caught trying to plant a bomb in an oil tanker. Nato supply trucks parked by a road in Torkhum, Pakistan (2 Oct 2010) Contractors say there is little of no security for the supply convoys
“This happened in the area of Paiyee, when he was putting the bomb under the vehicle.”
“At that time, a few men also opened fire on the tankers. The deputy later told the police that he had been told to plant the bomb by the contractor.”
Dost Mohammad said the contractor had apparently sold off the fuel first.
“Only 2,000 litres from the original 50,000 litres had been left in the tanker to cover up the crime,” he said.
Dost Mohammad said it is a win-win situation for the contractors.
“If an old vehicle is burnt, Nato gives them money for a new vehicle. In addition, they receive compensation for all the fuel lost as well.” Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
We are very scared at the moment – we are an open target for the militants”
End Quote Israrullah Shinwari All Pakistan Oil Tankers Association
But the Deputy Minister for Interior, Tasneem Ahmed, dismissed the transporters’ claims.
“We have no such information that the Nato contractors are themselves setting the tankers on fire,” he told the BBC.
“No such complaints have been lodged, to my knowledge.”
The BBC also spoke to a Nato contractor, who was similarly dismissive of the allegations.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said Nato insured all the goods being transported and the vehicles carrying them.
“Nato pays the premium and bears the relevant charges with the local companies who provide the schemes. The transporters are then reimbursed on the basis of their actual losses,” he said.
But he said the policies were only valid within Pakistan. Driver arrests
But Nowshera’s police chief, Nisar Tanoli, had a different account of events. Continue reading the main story Khyber Pass
• Up to 80% of Nato supplies for Afghanistan pass through Pakistan
• Majority are driven 1,200 miles (1,931km) from port of Karachi to Kabul via Khyber Pass
• 1,000 container lorries and tankers travel daily through the pass to Kabul
• Khyber Pass is 53km long (33 miles) and up to a height of 1,070m (3,444ft)
• About 150 lorries go via the southern supply route through Chaman to Kandahar.
Talking to the BBC, he confirmed that at least two attempts to blow up oil tankers had taken place in the district.
“One took place in Paiyee, and the other in the area of Watak near Akora Khattak,” he said.
“In both incidents the tankers were parked in the area for a couple of days. During this time, bombs were made in nearby houses and then used on the tankers.”
He said the contractors were “in a hurry” to get a copy of the initial police reports into the incident and were “not interest in prolonging the investigations”.
“The insurance agents also showed up a few days later,” he said.
Mr Tanoli says the police carried on their investigations and the facts eventually came to light.
“We have now arrested some drivers and their helpers,” he said.
“The people behind them are not residents in the district, but we have issued warrants for their arrest.”
He added that there have been incidents in which fuel for aircraft has been sold off.
“The contractors later said it had leaked, or the tanker caught fire.” ‘Open target’
All, then, is not as straight forward as it seems, as far as the threat to the Nato supply route is concerned. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote
Pakistan’s intelligence and security apparatus may be encouraging the attacks by looking the other way”
End Quote Security analyst
But despite these additional concerns, the main danger continues to come from the Taliban.
“We are very scared at the moment – we are an open target for the militants,” said Israrullah Shinwari, a spokesman for the All Pakistan Oil Tankers Association.
“Since the blockade was enforced, we have 3,000 tankers stranded across Pakistan.”
“The blockade itself has cost us tens of millions of rupees in losses. This does not include the damages suffered in the attacks.
“The Taliban have openly declared they will target the tankers, but we have been provided with no security.”
Since 2007, the militants have destroyed or captured dozens of Nato transport vehicles, especially in the Khyber tribal region.
But a security analyst said the latest move was “tantamount to encouraging the militants to have a real go at the convoys”.
“The fact that government ministers are calling the attack an expression of public anger shows that some may just be payback,” he said.
“Pakistan’s intelligence and security apparatus may be encouraging the attacks by looking the other way. In fact, there are suggestions that agencies may themselves be behind some themselves.”
Additional reporting by Riffatullah Orakzai, BBC News, Peshawar
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11489955
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