Nouvelle évaluation du coût de la guerre par Bilmes-Stigiltz : cette fois, plus de $2.000 milliards

Deux économistes, Linda Bilmes et le Prix Nobel Joseph E. Stiglitz, avaient publié en janvier de cette année une évaluation projetée du coût total de la guerre en Irak qui devait dépasser les $1.000 milliards pour approcher les $2.000 milliards. L’évaluation paraissait alors considérable mais pourtant pas vraiment surprenante. On a en effet depuis trois ans en Irak l’impression d’un amoncellement extraordinaire d’argent gaspillé, essentiellement à cause du mode de fonctionnement de la machine de guerre américaniste et des méthodes massives de guerre. Les conséquences directes et indirectes son évidemment considérables et doivent être prises en compte.

Dans le numéro de décembre de la Milken Institute Review, les deux économistes reviennent sur leur estimation pour en présenter une nouvelle, qu’ils chiffrent comme dépassant très nettement les $2.000 milliards (exactement $2.267 milliards) sans prendre en compte les intérêts de la dette à laquelle ces dépenses doivent grandement participer.

Ci-dessous, les lignes d’introduction de l’article et la conclusion de l’évaluation.

«In January, we estimated that the true cost of the Iraq war could reach $2 trillion, a figure that seemed shockingly high. But since that time, the cost of the war – in both blood and money – has risen even faster than our projections anticipated. More than 2,500 American troops have died and close to 20,000 have been wounded since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. And the $2 trillion number – the sum of the current and future budgetary costs along with the economic impact of lives lost, jobs interrupted and oil prices driven higher by political uncertainty in the Middle East – now seems low.

»One source of difficulty in getting an accurate picture of the direct cost of prosecuting the war is the way the government does its accounting. With “cash accounting,” income and expenses are recorded when payments are actually made – for example, what you pay off on your credit card today – not the amount outstanding. By contrast, with “accrual accounting,” income and expenses are recorded when the commitment is made. But, as Representative Jim Cooper, Democrat of Tennessee, notes, “The budget of the United States uses cash accounting, and only the tiniest businesses in America are even allowed to use cash accounting. Why? Because it gives you a very distorted picture.”

»The distortion is particularly acute in the case of the Iraq war. The cash costs of feeding, housing, transporting and equipping U.S. troops, paying for reconstruction costs, repairs and replacement parts and training Iraqi forces are just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Costs incurred, but not yet paid, dwarf what is being spent now – even when future anticipated outlays are converted back into 2006 dollars.

(…)

»The total costs of the war, including the budgetary, social and macroeconomic costs, are likely to exceed $2 trillion. As large as these costs are, an equally large set of costs have been omitted. We have not included the costs borne by other countries, either directly (as a result of military expenditures) or indirectly (as a result of the increase in the price of oil.) Then there are the intangible costs – the cost of our reduced capability to respond to national security threats elsewhere in the world, and the cost of rising anti-American sentiment in Europe and the Middle East. Americans have long taken pride in fighting for human rights. But our credentials have been badly tarnished by the Iraq war, leading to a sharp decline in America’s “soft power.” On issues from trade negotiations to global warming to the international criminal justice system, this decline will have a continuing impact on the United States’ ability to have its point of view prevail.»

Mis en ligne le 4 novembre 2006 à 08H57