Post by Penny Pincher on Feb 1, 2015 21:40:33 GMT -8
I found a nice set of web pages that Brown University put together as part of their "Costs of War" project at:
www.costsofwar.org/article/economic-cost-summary
Their estimate for the costs that will ultimately flow out of Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL), total $2.21 Trillion. Although merely the USA's portion of the total cost, this figure is so large that it's quite difficult for humans to comprehend. However, to show just how bad Bush's decision was on a purely financial basis, one can calculate the total value of Iraq's oil reserves back in 2003.
According to the US Energy Information Administration graph posted at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Iraq#mediaviewer/File:Iraq_Proved_Oil_Reserves.png
it was thought that Iraq had less 120 billion barrels of oil left prior to the invasion. At the time, the going price was less than $30 per barrel according to the curve at:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crude_oil_prices_since_1861_%28log%29.png
This means that all the oil was worth less than 120 billion barrels x $30/barrel which would come to $3.6 Trillion. I'm pretty sure a volume discount could have been negotiated to get this figure down well below what it's looking like the war will end up costing the USA. The fact that war increased the price of oil (and other things) may not have been fully taken into account as a cost of war either. By simply making a volume purchase, we could have had a whole lot of oil, a lot more healthy living people who didn't have to become soldiers, and many many healthy living people elsewhere who would not be hating us now for killing/maiming their kin.
One theory about why war was so quickly chosen is that the oil companies were afraid oil prices would drop later in 2003 when the sanctions from the previous Iraq war were set to expire and allow Iraq to resume selling its oil on the open market. Maximum transnational profits could only be realized by limiting the flow. Perhaps a similar theory explains the prior Iraq war as well. They all seem quite avoidable otherwise. I hope they don't resort to another war just to bring up the rather low gas prices we've been enjoying lately.