WASHINGTON — As President Barack Obama measures the
potential burden of a new war strategy in Afghanistan, his administration is
struggling to come up with even the most dispassionate of predictions: the
actual price tag for the anticipated build-up of troops.
The calculations so far have produced a sweeping range. The
Pentagon publicly estimates it will cost about $500,000 a year for every
additional man or woman sent to the war zone, while the president’s budget
experts size it up at twice that much.
Beyond the divergent accounting methods and estimates, the
military and civilian sides of the government bring differing viewpoints to the
task of counting the cost of war.
At the White House, advisors to the president don’t want to
underestimate cost and, later, see war support falter for lack of candor. At
the Defense Department, the lower estimate may be an attempt to avoid sticker
shock, as military commanders push for an increase of as much as 40,000 new
troops.
Both sides emphasize their figures are estimates, and could
change. In fact, in one assessment earlier this month, the Pentagon comptroller
put the number closer to that of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget.
But the difference reflects a truism about budgeting and
politics: The two are inextricably entwined, and numbers can always support
more than one point of view.
The Bush White House minimized costs as it moved toward war.
Obama, intent on a more thorough accounting, is skeptically weighing the
proposed escalation of a war he didn’t personally launch.
In his presidential campaign, Obama promised that he’d do
away with the process of tucking war costs away, outside the government’s
budget books.
“Our resources in manpower, our resources in human
lives and our resources in money are not infinite,” said Robert Gibbs,
Obama’s press secretary, in an interview. “The notion that we wouldn’t
take each of those things into account does not make a lot of sense to this
commander-in-chief.”
All of those elements are under consideration right now, as
Obama wraps up an in-depth review of war strategy. He is expected any week now
to respond to requests from his commander in the region for a strategy change
and for additional forces. The White House could announce a ramp-up of 20,000
to 40,000 new troops shortly after Thanksgiving.
During a recent session of his war council, Obama asked how
much it would cost to pay for the troops Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has
requested. The president sought an exact accounting, a request that turned out
to be more complicated than anticipated.
The OMB estimates the cost of adding 40,000 troops at about
$40 billion a year, or $1 million each. White House officials included in their
estimate everything they say is needed to wage war, including construction of
buildings to house soldiers and the equipment they need to do their jobs.
The much lower number being circulated by the Pentagon
derives from dividing the amount of money in its war funding request by the
number of troops in Afghanistan and in supporting roles throughout the region.
While there are 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, there are up to 95,000
involved elsewhere, such as on nearby ships or in surrounding countries.
The Pentagon cost includes the extra pay that soldiers earn
when they are in a combat zone, the extra hours flown by aircraft and other
operations and maintenance costs.
But the Pentagon calculation leaves out costs like new
weapons purchases, which include many one-time costs that vary by year. It also
leaves out the cost of equipment that helps troops, like spy satellites and
some of the technology being used to combat roadside bombs.
The Pentagon figure also omits the unknown costs of new
bases to house additional soldiers. Some Pentagon officials see politics at
play. A contingent of Obama’s war council has questioned the wisdom of sending
more troops, a possible sign of their skepticism about a buildup.
“This is a wedge issue,” said one military
official, noting similar issues didn’t arise during Obama’s first troop
buildup, in advance of August’s Afghan elections. “Why didn’t this get
asked earlier this year?”
Outside the Pentagon, some experts worry that questions
about personnel costs are part of a spin campaign meant to erode support for
the troop surge.
“The large-scale message has been, ‘This is going to be
hard and expensive,’ ” said Thomas Donnelly, an American Enterprise
Institute fellow and defense expert.
Not all military officials see political motives in the
higher per-soldier figures used by the administration. The Pentagon’s own
comptroller offered an estimate in early November that was much higher after
breaking with the customary Defense formula and including construction and
equipment in the computation.
In a memo obtained by the Tribune Washington Bureau, the
comptroller’s office said the yearly cost of a troop increase of 40,000 would
be somewhere around $30 billion to $35 billion — at least $750,000 per person.
For an increase of 20,000, it would be about $20 billion to $25 billion,
according to the memo, fixing the per-soldier cost at the White House estimate,
or greater.
A congressional staff member who has examined both the White
House and Pentagon numbers says there are good reasons for the different cost
estimates.
“The first thing to understand is there aren’t any
definite numbers,” the congressional official said. “There is a fair
amount of uncertainty.”
Many analysts agree that the historic cost accounting of war
is fuzzy, because big chunks are paid through emergency measures and are not
calculated into the total.
The accounting is complex. Under questioning by the House
Armed Services Committee this week, a Congressional Budget Office expert
couldn’t say how much it costs to run the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I find it astonishing that, eight years into this, we
haven’t nailed it down with precision,” another witness at the table,
David Berteau, director of the Defense Industrial Initiatives Group of the
Center for Strategic and International Studies, said later.
At least to one defense budget expert, it’s a question worth
asking.
“If the budget is going to be constrained,” said
Stephen Daggett of the Congressional Research Service, “one of the
questions we have to ask is whether we can sustain the increases in forces.”
In political terms, partisans of all stripes are likely to
think first about intangibles, including American tolerance for troop
casualties and support for sending new troops to Afghanistan. Democratic
leaders say money won’t determine their level of commitment.
“You have to look at the mission first,” said Rep.
Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services
Committee. “You absolutely start with that.”
Obama’s decision will be based on strategy, said Gibbs, not
money.
“The president is going to pick the strategy that’s
most in our national security interest,” he said. “Along the way, the
health of our forces, the toll on lives and the financial costs will all be
discussed.”
Via McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
