Friday, November 17, 2006

Costs of the War to Marylanders

The Institute for Policy Studies (www.ips-dc.org) has a detailed accounting of the costs of war for Maryland (as of October):

The Casualties
U.S. military killed in Iraq: 2,737
U.S. military from Maryland killed in Iraq: 52
Iraqi civilians killed: estimates range from 43,937 - 655,000
Number of U.S. troops wounded in combat: 20,687
Number of U.S. troops from Maryland wounded in combat: 275

The Bill So Far
The cost so far: $379 billion
The estimated long-term cost: $1.4 trillion
The bill for the State of Maryland: $6.4 billion
The bill for the City of Baltimore: $452 million
The bill for every U.S. citizen: $1,264
$6.4 billion could have funded needed security improvements
for the entire nation for:
First Responders (4.0 billion) and
Container Security (2.5 billion)
Value of Halliburton’s contracts so far: $18.5 billion

The Effects
Number of resistance fighters in Iraq:
November 2003 estimate: 5,000 fighters
August 2006 estimate: 20,000+ fighters
What the Iraq War has created, according to the U.S. National
Intelligence Council:
“a training and recruitment ground (for terrorists)”
Effect on al Qaeda of the Iraq War, according to the
International Institute for Strategic Studies:
“Accelerated recruitment”
Hours of electricity per day: 10.7
Unemployment rate in Iraq: 25-40%
Unemployment rate in U.S. during the Great Depression: 25%

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