The Toll - 7/27/08 - The Lesson from Aggression

One M-RAP, bomb-resistant vehicle - $1 million.

Lifelong treatment for post traumatic stress disorder - $800 thousand.

Invasion and occupation of a foreign country - priceless.

Actually, it looks as though it may turn out to be slightly less than "priceless." Originally estimated to cost $50 billion by the pencil-pushers in the White House budget office, the war in Iraq has so far run up a tab of $648 billion and will soon surpass the inflation-adjusted cost of the Vietnam War, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) this week.

It should be noted that the original, low-ball estimate is responsible for a certain amount of damage on its own and has a continuing significance today, especially for our injured veterans, as explained further below.

The total cost gets worse, however - much worse. The figure calculated by the CRS does not include expenses for veterans' benefits, interest on war-related debts, or assistance to war allies. If all related expenses are taken into consideration the ultimate price tag rises to the $3 trillion range according to the "moderate estimate" prepared by Nobel laureate, economist and professor at Columbia University, Joseph E. Stiglist, and finance expert and Harvard professor Linda J. Barnes.

This astounding projection appears in their recent book appropriately titled "The Three Trillion Dollar War," published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. and available in the U.K. through Penguin Books. A summary also appeared in Vanity Fair in April.

One of the reasons for the extent of the surprise factor here, according to the authors, is that "the V.A. based its forecasts for health-care needs as late as 2005-6 on data for 2002, before the Iraq war began." As a result the agency was, and continues to be, unprepared to handle the level of actual casualties that have resulted, and that has become "the surge the administration doesn't talk about."

Today, Stiglist and Barnes tell us that "the VA has a backlog of some 400,000 claims that are taking an average of six months to process." Furthermore, about 14% of those that are declined end up being appealed and the VA's final decision then takes an average of two years, a scenario that continues to leave many veterans in limbo.

Despite the fact that the problem has been well documented for years, the authors tell us that the V.A. is still "stretched beyond capacity. It has run out of money, and in cities around the country V.A. hospitals are having trouble hiring enough doctors and nurses. In many areas, seriously wounded veterans are being forced to wait more than 30 days just to see a doctor."

And incidentally, for those interested, the $3 trillion price tag is based on the reasonable assumption that there will be a substantial pullout by 2010, followed by the presence of some soldiers over the next 10-years.

Meanwhile, our troops have had a relatively safe week. The Department of Defense released the obituaries of one 28-year-old soldier killed in Iraq and two military personnel, ages 22 and 25, killed in Afghanistan.

According to the web site www.icasualties.org, U.S. deaths in Iraq now stand at 4,124.

Total U.S. deaths in Afghanistan were 489 as of July 19, according to the Pentagon.

And for the first time since The Toll began recording casualties from improvised explosive devices, none of this week's fallen heroes in the war zones were killed by roadside bombs.

General conditions for the citizens of Iraq were not entirely free of violence, however. Since Friday, there have been reports of 14 bomb attacks causing 10 deaths and 39 injuries, as well as a number of shooting incidents.

Back in the United States, a sad funeral marked the return to Massachusetts of 25-year-old Army Staff Sergeant Alex Jimenez, whose body was recently recovered in Iraq after he had been reported missing for over a year.

The occasion was particularly sad for the many residents who had held out hope that he would be found alive. The procession that brought Alex home blocked parts of two interstates before it came to a halt in front of his father's house in the city of Lawrence.

A few feet away, attached to a fence bordering the property, was a letter previously sent home by the fallen hero. According to a report by MSNBC on Friday, it included the passage that he would "promise to fight for the innocent who can't fight for themselves and for the United States of America."

Alex was expected to be buried yesterday on Long Island, New York.