[In response to a Watchdog observations “[President Obama] actually said $30 billion ‘this year.’ Perhaps he meant in 2010, but it hard to believe that a speech so vetted could contain such a mistake”]
The transcript says “Our new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost us roughly $30 billion for the military this year, and I’ll work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.”
That’s $30 billion above and beyond what we’re currently spending. Kinda hard to spend $30 billion in 4 weeks.
The Pentagon says we spent $43 billion on Afghanistan in FY 2008, we’re spending $55 billion in FY 2009, and $73 billion in FY 2010. I think he’s talking about the “burn rate” once we’ve deployed the 30,000 extra soldiers. Federal fiscal years run from October through September.
[Afghanistan] only has a GDP of $10 billion. It’d be cheaper to bring the army home, and hire Mafia hitmen to eradicate everyone in the country. You can hire a hitman for $380, and yet we’ve spent $1,973 per resident this year to lose, and we expect to spent $2,570 per Afghani next year to continue losing.
