WASHINGTON — The amount of U.S. money spent on the Iraq war will surpass the cost of Vietnam by the end of the year, making it the second most expensive military conflict in American history, behind World War II, according to Pentagon figures provided Friday.
If Congress approves the supplemental funding request submitted this week by the Obama administration, the cost of the war will rise by $87 billion for 2009, including a previous supplement approved during the Bush administration.
Added to the amount spent through 2008, it would mean the Iraq war will have cost taxpayers a total of about $694 billion. By comparison, the Vietnam War cost $686 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars and World War II cost $4.1 trillion, according to a Congressional Research Service study completed last year.
In Vietnam, U.S. forces at their peak had up to three times as many troops at any one time as in Iraq and suffered 58,000 deaths, more than 13 times as many as have died in Iraq. There are two broad reasons for the added expense of the Iraq war: people and equipment.
The Iraq war is the second-longest modern war ever fought with an all-volunteer U.S. force, behind the smaller-scale effort in Afghanistan. Volunteer forces are more expensive because of the higher salaries and related costs needed to retain people.
"This is a volunteer military, which is pretty unusual in an extended war," said Stephen Biddle, a military historian at the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank. "And people cost more."
U.S. officials in Iraq also have relied heavily on private contractors, used to protect diplomats and defend bases, transport provisions and staff essential services such as providing food.
A Congressional Budget Office report last year estimated there were 190,000 contract workers employed by U.S. agencies in Iraq -- more than the number of U.S. military personnel at the peak of the buildup in forces in 2007, about 160,000 to 170,000 troops. The salaries earned by the contractors were far higher than those of soldiers.
Medical care in Iraq has also been expensive, Biddle noted. Combat doctors have been able to save soldiers, sailors and Marines who in earlier conflicts would have died. Both the initial treatment and long-term care are costly.
"Certainly many, many more people who get hit by enemy fire live through the experience, and I suspect that treating someone who survives is more expensive than having them die, in dollar terms," Biddle said.
