Estimating the Costs of Military Operations in Iraq
Abstract
This testimony, given by J. Michael Gilmore, Assistant Director for National Security, before the Committee on the Budget, United States Senate, discusses the costs of operations in the Iraq theater and issues associated with estimating those costs. Mr. Gilmore's statement is based on the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) recent estimate of the costs of the President's plan to increase U.S. forces in Iraq as well as on other analyses of war-related costs that CBO has performed during the past few years. This testimony will briefly discuss CBO's estimate of the costs of the President's plan and other scenarios for increasing forces in the theater. It also will discuss some of the budgeting and reporting issues that make it difficult for CBO to estimate the costs of military operations in Iraq. To reflect some of the uncertainty about the number of support troops, CBO developed its estimates on the basis of two alternative assumptions. In one scenario, CBO assumed that additional support troops would be deployed in the same proportion to combat troops that currently exists in the Iraq theater. That approach would require about 28,000 support troops in addition to the 20,000 combat troops -- a total of 48,000. CBO also presents an alternative scenario that would include a smaller number of support personnel -- about 3,000 per combat brigade -- totaling about 15,000 support personnel and bringing the total additional forces to about 35,000. CBO estimated costs for a number of different deployment periods, ranging from four months to two years. In each case, the period identified is the length of time that the peak force levels would be sustained.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 06, 2007
- Accession Number
- ADA462297
Entities
People
- J. M. Gilmore
Organizations
- Congressional Budget Office