http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html
At the outset of the Iraq war, the Bush administration predicted that it would cost $50 billion to $60 billion to oust Saddam Hussein, restore order and install a new government.
And it did!
Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office
and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2 trillion is more
realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the American
occupation continues.
No one thought that the mainstream media, the democrats and Bush haters would have been so helpful to the thug/barbarians by encouraging the bombing of schools, markets, and hiding behind women and children such as the thug/barbarians have done. The MSM/Democrats thug/barbarian lovers have been the cause of the continued/ (but diminishing deaths - so far in May less then 1 US troop per day and less then 300 Iraqis).
As far as Stiglitz estimation of costs
-- why not add the continuing costs of WWII,Korea,Vietnam and see how much that has been. The economic loss of earning by the combined 500,000 US troops deaths is calculated over their lives using average of 20,000/year per dead soldier can be calculated at almost $220 billion - money that would with a multipler effect of 10 to 1 - loss of over $2 trillion. So tell me what that costs should have been added.
Did you know that Stiglitz to continue to serve as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers for another term. But he had already been approached by the World Bank, to be its senior vice president for development policy and its chief economist under Clinton and is a die-hard Democrat? No wonder he makes these totally unsubstantiated statements!
For example, what would have been the cost if the Thug/barbarians had not been encouraged as the Harvard Study shows when they asked this question:
"Are insurgents in Iraq emboldened by voices in the news media expressing dissent or calling for
troop withdrawals from Iraq?
[Statements like these that encourage the thug/barbarians to kill more people...
-- like Ted Turner (Founder of CNN news) did the other day "freedom fighters"
And these comments made by our lawmakers!!!
-- Senate Majority Leader!!- Harry Reid(D) "War is lost",
"Our troops killed innocent civilians in cold blood,” said U.S. Rep. John Murtha(D) of Pennsylvania.
-- Senator Kerry (D) when he accused American soldiers of
"going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children.
”http://newsok.com/article/3106232]
The short answer:is yes, according to Radha Iyengar, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy research at Harvard and Jonathan Monten of the Belfer Center at the university's Kennedy School of Government.
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=16097
STUDY ABSTRACT
Using data on attacks and variation in access to international news across Iraqi provinces, we identify an “emboldenment” effect by comparing the rate of insurgent attacks in areas with higher and lower access to information about U.S news after public statements critical of the war. We find in periods after a spike in war-critical statements, insurgent attacks increases by 5-10 percent. The results suggest that insurgent groups respond rationally to expected probability of US withdrawal.
So let's add up the cost IF the Liberation from Saddam of 27 million Iraqis had not occurred.
1) Using Stiglitz's logic: The cost of 9/11 has been calculated at over $1 trillion over the last 7 years.
2) Assuming Saddam was successful in his terrorism schools and terrorist launched a nuclear attack against Chicago. The economic impact:
a) Loss of life - estimated at 90% of the 2.8 million earning power gone from 1,061,928 household:
The median income for a household in the city was $38,625, and the median income for a family was $46,748 or a total of $48 billion a year loss.
b) Chicago has the third largest gross metropolitan product in the nation — approximately $442 billion according to 2007 estimates.
So if Saddam helped destroy Chicago Economic loss $500 billion a year! Over 5 years $2.5 trillion!
People dead: 1.8 million.
So tell me how does Stiglitz calculate that?