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Cost of Iraq war will reach at least $320 billion, analysts warn

Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Apr. 27, 2006 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The cost of the war in Iraq will reach $320 billion after the expected passage next month of an emergency spending bill currently before the Senate, the Congressional Research Service said, adding that the total is likely to more than double before the war ends.

The analysis, distributed to some members of Congress on Tuesday, provides the most official cost estimate yet of a war whose cost will rise by nearly 17 percent this year. Just last week, independent defense analysts looking only at Defense Department costs put the total at least $7 billion below the research arm's figure.

Once the war spending bill is passed, military and diplomatic costs will have reached $102 billion this fiscal year, up from $87 billion in 2005 and $51 billion in 2003, according to congressional analysts. Even if a gradual troop withdrawal begins this year, war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to rise by an additional $371 billion during the phase-out, the report said. The war this year will consume nearly as much as the Departments of Education, Justice and Homeland Security combined.

"The costs are exceeding even the worst-case scenarios," said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., of the House Budget Committee.

On Wednesday, as the Senate debated a $106.5 billion bill to fund the wars and hurricane relief, 59 senators voted to divert $1.9 billion from President Bush's war-funding request to pay for new Border Patrol agents, aircraft and fencing at some border crossings.

When some Democrats charged that the move would take money from needed combat funds, the measure's author, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., called that "pure poppycock."

In another challenge to Bush, the Senate voted by a veto-proof number, 72-26, to shelve an amendment that would have struck spending on all items not requested by the administration. Those items include farm drought assistance and a $700 million measure to relocate a Mississippi railroad. The White House has issued a veto threat on the bill if it overly exceeds the $92.2 billion requested in February.

The study's author, defense specialist Amy Belasco, stressed that the cost is only an estimate because the Department of Defense has refused to break out the cost of Iraqi operations from the $435 billion cost of what the administration calls the "Global War on Terrorism." That cost applies to military, diplomatic and foreign-aid operations, enhanced security efforts and related medical costs of the Department of Veterans Affairs.