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The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict (Hardcover)

by Joseph Stiglitz (Author), Linda Bilmes (Author) "ON MARCH 19, 2003, the United States and its "coalition of the willing" invaded Iraq ..." (more)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Allen Lane (28 Feb 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1846141281
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846141287
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.8 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 284,332 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Product Description

THE THREE TRILLION DOLLAR WAR will be a devastating reckoning of the true cost of the Iraq war - quite apart from its tragic human toll - which the Bush administration has estimated at $50 billion, but which Stiglitz and Bilmes will show underestimates the real figure by approximately six times. The authors expose the gigantic expenses which have so far not been officially accounted for, including not only big ticket items like replacing military equipment (being used up at six times the peacetime rate) but also the cost of caring for thousands of wounded veterans - for the rest of their lives. Shifting to a global perspective, the authors investigate the cost in lives and damage within Iraq and the Middle East generally. With chilling precision, they calculate what the money spent on the war would have produced had it been further invested in the growth of the economy, in the US and around the world, and in infrastructure building. Stiglitz and Bilmes write in simple language, which makes the details they present, and the sums they add up, all the more disturbing. This book will change forever the way we think about the Iraq war - and about the cost of war generally.

About the Author

Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist at the World Bank until January 2000. Before that he was Chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors. He is currently University Professor of the Columbia Business School and Chair of the Management Board and Director of Graduate Summer Programs, Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 and is the author of the best-selling Globalization and Its Discontents, The Roaring Nineties, and Making Globalization Work, all published by Penguin. Linda J. Bilmes is a Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University and has written widely on the cost of the Iraq War, veterans issues, and federal workforce reform. During the Clinton administration, she served as Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe,and the Atlantic Monthly. In 1998 she coauthored Gebt uns das Risiko Zuruck (Give Us Back the Risk), a best-seller in Germany. Her forthcoming book (The People Factor) is on civil service reform.
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ON MARCH 19, 2003, the United States and its "coalition of the willing" invaded Iraq. Read the first page
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Scary numbers of war, 10 Jun 2008
By Oliver Habibi (Glasgow, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
For me this book (which I've just finished) has given me 3 insights:

1) Geez, war really does cost a lot. I can't see how any politician in his / her right mind would ever commit their country to such an economy-destroyer. The US and UK are shown to have cunningly tried to both disregard and hide the costs of invading Iraq, and to a lesser extent, Afghanistan, to a shockingly immoral and callous extent. You won't be surprised to know the Iraqis haven't exactly done well out of the war either. Unless you're a defence contractor, war just isn't worth it.

2) Politicians will go to extreme lengths for their own short term gain, at almost any cost. It really is depressing, reading that the US army employs so many contractors to keep the army fatality numbers lower, but at such a cost that they don't give their own troops proper equipment or reasonable medical care after injury or PTSD. That's material cost. The authors also include goodwill towards America and Britain - this book is very well thought out.

3) Politicians again I'm afraid: The Bush administration has managed to hump much of the costs onto the next generations in the form of interest payments, without anyone (apart from the authors) really noticing. This is really quite serious and I winced as I read what services might have to be cut so that this war can be paid off.


The facts and figures are presented clearly and give no doubt that the proper research and reasonable methods / assumptions have been made by the authors, who I must thank for this book. I can't think of any adult who shouldn't read this. The headline figures are very interesting but the book provides more than that; it gave me an education into the non-military effects of war, and how devastating they invariably are.
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12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Useful estimates of the costs of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, 24 April 2008
By William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001, and Linda Bilmes, a lecturer at Harvard, have produced an estimate of the real cost of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Iraq, 4,000 US troops have been killed, 58,000 wounded, and 100,000 have returned home with serious mental disorders. Stiglitz and Bilmes estimate that the USA's total lifetime medical, disability and social security costs for the two wars will be $717 billion through to 2017.

They estimate that the war against Iraq will cost the USA a total of $2.65 trillion through to 2017. The war on Afghanistan will cost another $850 billion through to 2017. The total is $3.5 trillion. (Bush misunderestimated it would be $50 billion, wrong by a factor of seventy.) This works out at $25,000 for every US household.

The costs of the two wars to the rest of the world are another $3 trillion, largely because the invasion has driven up oil prices from $25 a barrel to $120. This has cost the world $800 billion so far, and will have cost an estimated $1.6 trillion by 2015. It has cost us in Britain £24 billion so far, and will have cost an estimated £50 billion by 2015.

The wars' direct military costs to us in Britain so far are £8.7 billion; the estimated future costs till 2015 are another £7 billion. Veterans' disability and medical costs are £2.3 billion. The social costs of deaths and disabilities are another £2 billion. The total is £20 billion, £800 per household.

The First World War cost the USA $577 billion, the war on Korea $295 billion, the war on Vietnam $670 billion and the Gulf War $94 billion. The total cost of these four wars was $1.64 trillion, which is just half the cost of the two current wars.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A terrible political decision, 2 Aug 2009
By Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict (Paperback)
The US invasion of Iraq was an act of aggression, which violated international law.

Its premises were false: Saddam Hussein didn't possess weapons of mass destruction and there was no link between the Iraqi government and the 9/11 attacks.
The obvious reason for the Iraq war was oil. After the invasion, the Iraqis were free (even to use their ammunition supplies), but not to lay their hands on the keys of the Oil Ministry or the oil production facilities.

The results of this unlawful war are truly catastrophic.
For Iraq, about five hundred thousand people died as `collateral damage'; 2 million people fled the country; 2 million people are refugees within Iraq's borders. There is less electricity and water than before the war. Corruption is rampant. There is no law or order and no jobs. The country is governed by a religious, not a secular government. Roads, schools, hospitals, houses and museums are destroyed.
For the US, there are 4000 casualties. 58000 injured and hundreds of thousand of veterans (1 out of 4) claiming disability benefits for amputations, skin diseases, blindness, spinal damage or heavy mental problems (see the formidable movie `The Mark of Cain' by Mark Munden).
Internationally, the US is no longer seen as a bastion of civil rights and democracy. It is seen as a warmonger with a defense budget that equals the budgets of all other countries in the world combined. The Middle East is less secure than before the war. Also, costly time has been lost for tackling global issues like climate change or North Korea's nuclear program.

And of course, there is the money cost.
The Bush government estimated the total war cost at no more than 1.7 B US$ (for some it was even a zero operation).
The authors of this book calculated conservatively that the total cost of the Iraq war for the US alone will be at least 3 trillion US$ and perhaps reach 5 trillion US$. Mind-boggling. All these dollars could have been spent otherwise (on education, research, alternative energy technology, to combat poverty and Aids ...)

The authors also propose much needed reforms in the case of (hopefully not) future decisions to go to war. The population should be better informed about the human and economic costs involved. Those who fought and fight for their country should be better treated (sufficient funding for medical care and less bureaucracy for the treatment of disability claims).

This depressing book is a must read for all those interested in US history and in the world we live in.
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5.0 out of 5 stars The True cost of Destroying Iraq
Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes have being doing their sums with regard to the total cost of the War in Iraq to the United States. Read more
Published 12 months ago by S Wood

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