I'm Glad Someone Noticed
I just caught this reference on the website for
Project for the Old American Century. It's a link to an article on DefenceTech.org, which in turn leads to a
Congressional Budget Office report (pdf), which is an analysis of the likely costs of the troop surge that Bush has proposed.
But what is intersting is not so much the cost, but the finding that the cited figure (21,000 troops) is likely to be misleading. Misleading as in...a lie.
Breaking: Double the Troops in "Surge" (Updated)
February 1, 2007 12:22 PM
President Bush and his new military chiefs have been saying for nearly a month that they would "surge" an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, in a last, grand push to quell the violence in Baghdad and in Anbar Province. But a new study by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says the real troop increase could be as high as 48,000 -- more than double the number the President initially said.
That's because the combat units that President Bush wants to send into hostile areas need to be backed up by support troops, "including personnel to staff headquarters, serve as military police, and provide communications, contracting, engineering, intelligence, medical, and other services," the CBO notes...
Click on the link to the CBO report for the gory details. They admit that they have no way of knowing exactly how many extra troops will be required, or how much it will cost. Instead, they come up with too scenarios, each with some degree of justification. One scenario anticipates that the support troops required to support the 21,000 combat troops would bring the total closer to 35,000; the other, 48,000.
They acknowledge also that they cannot predict how long the deployment would be. So they come up with four costs, based on a 2x2 table, with either 35,000 troops or 48,000 troops, and either
| 35,000 | 45,000 |
4 months | 9 bln | 13 bln |
12 months | 20 bln | 27 bln |
Oh, and as a courtesy, DefenceTech.org points out that the White House does not agree with the CBO analysis.
Details are at Think Progress. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out, but I should think that this gives Congress additional ammunition in their battle against the surge.
posted by : Joseph j7uy5
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