The “War” with Libya is costing us $10,000 per hour
Three Air Force stealth bomber land safely in Missouri March 21 after returning from a 5,709-mile, 25-hour bombing campaign in Libya.
The cost of the approximately 110 Tomahawk missiles launched on the first day of operation. The Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Washington think tank, estimates the Pentagon likely spent more than $81 million on those, says The Hill. National Journal puts the cost for those missiles higher at between $112 million to $168 million.
National Journal:
Meanwhile, it generally costs $10,000 per hour, including maintenance and fuel, to operate F-15s and F-16s. Those costs do not include the payloads dropped from the aircraft. The B-2s dropped 45 Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMS, which are 2,000-pound bombs that cost between $30,000 and $40,000 apiece to replace.
On the personnel front, special pay for soldiers involved in the operation will kick in immediately — unlike the munitions costs, which the Pentagon can defer.
the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), said in a report released earlier this month that a no-fly zone covering just the northern portion of Libya will cost between $30 million and $100 million per week. It also said there are one-time bills that could cost between $400 million and $800 million.
As a result, one former budget official told The Hill that Congress can expect to see a supplemental spending bill for Libya.
“Yeah, sure it will come,” Gordon Adams, who oversaw defense budgeting at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the Clinton years, said. “Any opportunity to raise money inside the Department of Defense will be seized.”
He went as far as to say costs for the Libyan no-fly zone “could get to $1 [billion] or $1.5 billion, if it goes on for a year.”
The Desk of Brian recommends:
Libya costs outweigh the benefits: op-ed by Doug Bandow
FOX News finally acknowledges that war costs a lot of money
NATO bombs Libya TV transmitters to “help the people”
War in Libya may wipe out Republican budget cuts
Shocking photo and headline from Middle East on Libya conflict
Farrakhan: America will reap a major deadly earthquake as consequence of her evil and murderous w ...
UN Security Council gives thumbs up to military intervention in Libya
US fighter plane crashes in Libya
