Iraq Costs - A Billion A Week, Plus Other Billions

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a hearing that the “burn rate” for American money to fund the military presence in Iraq was now $3.9 billion a month—almost $1 billion a week. “This is tough stuff,” said a cranky Rumsfeld, lecturing the Senate committee. “This is hard work. This takes time. We need to have some patience.”

But that billion a week is just the beginning. It doesn’t include the cost of running Iraq’s government and rebuilding it, which could be an additional billion a month, according to rough U.N. estimates made before the war. Then there’s the matter of Iraq’s enormous debts. Last week the major creditor countries in the so-called Paris Club agreed to restructure about $21 billion worth, but estimates of the total external debt, including war reparations to Kuwait, run well over $100 billion. How will the reconstruction be funded? For the administration it’s an especially painful question, in part because it comes at a time when the U.S. economy is in the doldrums, when budget deficits are ballooning and when tax cuts are the preferred method of getting business churning again. No wonder “Rumsfeld lost his cool,” said a former senior official from the first Bush administration. “He was befuddled. I think he’s running out of confidence and wriggle room.”