Product Description

The Three Trillion Dollar War is a devastating reckoning of the true cost of the Iraq war - quite apart from its tragic human toll - which the Bush administration estimated at $50 billion, but which Stiglitz and Bilmes show underestimates the real figure by approximately six times. The authors expose the gigantic expenses which have so far not been officially accounted for, the cost of caring for thousands of wounded veterans for the rest of their lives. 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #209126 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
'If you have to trust somebody in matters of economics, you could do worse than a Nobel Prize-winning former chief economist of the World Bank ... the superb achievement of this book, however, is how little you do have to take on trust' - Sam Leith, Telegraph

About the Author
Joseph Stiglitz was Chief Economist at the World Bank until January 2000. 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. During the Clinton administration, she served as Assistant Secretary for Management and Budget in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Customer Reviews

Scary numbers of war
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.

Useful estimates of the costs of the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan
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.

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. The result is an accessible and readable account which makes the sums straightforward and the reasons and assumptions they have used are made clear to the reader - indeed it is evident that their estimate is on the low side.

Stiglitz, a writer I for one have a good deal of time for, is an economist whom some would understandably pigeon hole as a reformist and this comes across in his writings. I dont think he completely appreciates the level of mendacity and the aims of the conservative right with regard to government. They are not at all disturbed at the disarray of public finances in the U.S. and are quite happy to see goverment spending on social programs and business regulation cut to make payments on the immense public deficit they have bequeathed future citizens of the U.S.

Saying that - he does pay some attention to the financial and human effects of the War with regards to Iraq, Britain and indeed the World in general. His appreciation of the size of the health problem that U.S. troops are incurring is deep and his castigating of the Bush administration record on this is suitably caustic.

He also looks into the explosive growth of private contractors, the effect on cost of oil, the weak congressional oversight of the war and its costs and other related issues. I'd thoroughly reccomend it and other Stiglitz writings, he maybe a bit niave about the prospects for change but his writing is sharp and has a good deal of integrity.