Revitalising Indian Democracy
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Vinod Saighal’s book compels attention for several reasons. To begin
with the Model for Restoration of Good Government (MRGG), a universal
model that he unveiled in October 1995 found resonance around the
country and some parts of the world, including the United Nations. It
was translated into several languages. There are other firsts in the
book. The author has covered an amazingly large spectrum in pursuance of
his single-minded quest for a better India. He brings to it a
perspective that is original and refreshing. In fact, it is rare to find
such broad spectrum analysis from a single source. Many of the
formulations would appeal to audiences in countries facing similar
decline in the functioning of their democracies.
In a series of talks delivered in 2010, 11 and 12 (Reconciling Coalition
Dharma, Good Governance, National Security; Is the Constitution being
constitutionally Undermined? Judicial Activism: Panacea, Bane or Boon)
the author highlighted the terminal degeneracy that has set in at the
very apex of governance. In similar vein he has expressed the view that
in spite of the judiciary being accused in government circles of
over-activism, in actual fact the judiciary has been reluctant to
intervene, merely lamenting the decline in governance in several of
their judgments. He goes on to say that had the judiciary been more
assertive the present decline in practically all areas of governance
could have been arrested much earlier. Relating to hardened criminals
becoming legislators, their combined strength in the Electoral College
will soon be larger than that of the national parties. Should the
present trend continue, by giving a call for unity amongst their
fraternity, they could hypothetically place an arch-criminal in the Rashtrapati Bhawan in the not
too distant future.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
General Vinod Saighal retired from the Indian Army in 1995 from the post of Director General Military Training. Before that he had several active command assignments, including the command of an independent armoured formation and mountain and desert divisions. He has held an assignment with the UN peacekeeping forces as well as a tenure in Iran . He had served as the country's Military Attache in France and BENELUX, additionally overseeing Spain and Portugal. He speaks several languages including French and Persian. Currently he is the Executive Director of Eco Monitors Society a non-governmental organization concerned with demography and ecology. After retirement, he founded the Movement for Restoration of Good Government. He has lectured extensively in India and abroad on several burning issues of the day. Vinod Saighal was invited to join the 'Institutional Advisory Board' of USFSS (US Federation of Scientists and Scholars) in 2000. He has been International Conseiller to Centre d'Etude et de Prospective Strategique (CEPS), Paris , France since 1995. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed book 'Third Millennium Equipoise'. Additionally, he has authored Restructuring South Asian Security, Restructuring Pakistan , Dealing with Global Terrorism: The Way Forward and Global Security Paradoxes: 2000-2020. His first book was selected at the Caracas International Book Fair in November 2008 for a Spanish edition (title: Equilibrio en el Tercer Milenio).
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WHY THE WAR ON GLOBAL TERRORIM IS NOT BEING WON
By Vinod Saighal
EXCERPTS FROM CHAPTER 2: THE DISPROPORTIONALITY FACTOR
In taped interviews to an Afghan interrogator, two Afghans and three Pakistanis
who were among 21 people arrested earlier in 2006 described their roles in the
attacks, which killed at least 70 people, most of them Afghan civilians but also
international peacekeepers, a Canadian diplomat and a dozen Afghan police officers
and soldiers. In the tape, the men described a fairly low-budget network that
begins with the recruitment of young bombers in the sprawling Pakistani port
city of Karachi. The bombers are moved to safe houses in the border towns of
Quetta and Chaman, and then transferred into Afghanistan, where they are provided
with cars and explosives and sent out to find a target.
Disproportionality works against the forces tackling terrorism, especially terrorism
of the type taken up by radical Islamists in several countries. By now most people
are fairly well acquainted with the terror breeding facilities that were set
up in Pakistan and Afghanistan right up to the allied invasion of Afghanistan,
following the 11/9/2001 attacks on the USA. While the Jihad factories might have
collapsed in Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in October 2001, there was hardly
any let up in selected areas of Pakistan, which continue to churn out fanatical,
zombie-like students in large numbers in their madrassas. The numbers of potential
Jihadis can now be reckoned in the hundreds of thousands, if not in the millions,
because these institutions have since spread to many other parts of the subcontinent
and beyond.
(HT World, Thursday, February 16, 2006, Page 12. (The New York
Times), Pak Blind
Eye to Afghan bombings)
The streamlined production facilities for churning out young, radicalized, possibly
misanthropic students in large numbers is not a costly exercise seeing the ready
availability of young recruits from families, which although impoverished, produce
children in large numbers. The average size of such families being six or seven,
they are ever ready to send one, two or more children to the madrassas where
they are clothed, fed and taught elementary counting besides writing in Urdu
and Arabic in order to learn the Quran by rote. Not all of the products coming
out of these madrassas would make high caliber terrorists. After very strict
weeding out even if two or three were to be found fit for undertaking the type
of terrorist strikes, including suicide missions that the world has come to dread
the final count would still be impressive. With variations for time, place, or
the country where Jihad factories are located the cost of training one potential
terrorist is not likely to exceed twenty thousand rupees, especially in the poorer
districts of Pakistan. This works out to less than US $500 per recruit at the
production site. Thereafter, translocation to other countries and proper kitting
out for the task could add to the cost by several hundred or even a few thousand
dollars. Except for very exceptional cases the total cost would not exceed US
$5000.
Taking the case now of the countries that are involved in the battle against
global terrorism it will be seen that as compared to the training of an average
Jihadi for carrying out terrorism acts the cost of training the average soldier
involved in combating this menace would be far higher. In the case of the armies
of most of the countries in Asia, for example India, The Philippines or Indonesia
it could be a factor of 10 or 20. That is to say that if the cost of training
an average Jihadi for undertaking terror missions works out to $5000, the cost
of training an average combatant in the countries mentioned could work out to
between 50,000 to 100,000 US dollars. In the case of the USA and some of the
western democracies, however, the cost increase could be a factor between 50
and 100, especially when training of Special Forces is taken into account. These
cost differentials continue even for persons rendered hors de combat. To elaborate:
an injured Jihadi would be taken clandestinely to some sympathetic medical practitioner
and operated upon in the most rudimentary fashion. In case of death the burial
costs would be minimal. Terminal benefits to the family of the deceased would
be a few hundred thousand rupees, equivalent to $4000 approximately. For impoverished
families in Pakistan, that offer up their children for such activities, even
half that amount would be considered a windfall.
Match this amount of approximately $4,000 in case of injury or death for the
Jihadi with the cost that would be incurred for a US soldier who becomes a casualty.
For serious injuries the cost of evacuation (normally by helicopter) to an advanced
field hospital and subsequently to a facility in Europe or USA, plus the cost
of treatment would work out to a differential factor between 1,000 and 10,000.
For serious injuries or death the pension and terminal benefits would be an order
of magnitude higher than those in the case of an injured or dying Jihadi.
The next item to be considered in this category is the cost of maintaining a
Jihadi in the field as compared to a US or western soldier. Taking the Afghanistan
or Iraq theaters the cost of maintaining a Jihadi in the field for one year would
seldom go beyond $1000, whereas the cost of maintaining a western soldier for
the same period would go up by a factor of about 100 or so depending upon the
location of the soldier or his unit. Here again, Special Forces come into a separate
category.
So far the comparisons worked out related only to the training and deployment
of the adversaries. We now have to consider the cost differential relating to
combat scenarios.
Combat Scenarios
We move next to the cost evaluation disparities in ‘live’ engagements
between terrorist teams and the US or NATO forces combating them. The disparity
resulting from suicide missions will be taken separately at the end. Sporadic
engagements between Jihadi type elements and the US forces and allies are taking
place practically every day in Afghanistan and Iraq. While there may be similarities
in the type of attacks carried out by the Jihadi elements in Afghanistan and
Iraq the terrain conditions obtaining being very dissimilar the response patterns
also vary considerably. In Afghanistan a typical incident could take any of the
following forms: an IED being set off along a route where the US or International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) teams have to pass; a mortar attack at an installation
or small-sized post; ambush; or hit and run operations launched from terrain
that would be difficult to negotiate by foreign forces. The difficulty in terrain
negotiation in mountainous country stems both from lack of the type of familiarity
that local inhabitants have as also from the type of equipment used by foreign
forces. In a typical ambush or hit and run operation a handful of Jihadis fire
a few rockets and mortar rounds on a US convoy or position. The latter could
be a temporary halting place or post occupied by a platoon-sized force. The initiative
almost invariably being with the attacker (the regrouped Taliban) the opening
shots in the form of various type of Small Arms (SA) would be fired from well-selected
positions on the mountainside overlooking the convoy or the post. By now the
retaliation procedure having also been perfected to a fine art by the US forces,
the retaliation is swift. There is immediate fire in very heavy volumes by the
post or the convoy attacked with integral weapons. Simultaneously the call goes
out for armed helicopters and aircraft strikes. Without going into further details,
tabulation can be made of the cost of the exchange to the two sides. In the case
of the attackers, surprise being with the attackers, few, if any casualties would
be suffered by them, because after letting off their initial volleys the Taliban
escape to a more sheltered position or simply melt away. The cost of the attack
on US forces to the Taliban would not normally exceed $100. It must be noted
here that there is no dearth of arms and ammunition of all types in Afghanistan.
Weapons and munitions had been dumped or sent in by the Russians, Americans,
Iranians and the Pakistanis in huge quantities over the years. Even now the pipeline
in manpower and war-materiel from Pakistan is intact, Pakistan’s frontline
status in the war on terrorism notwithstanding. The cost of response to even
the most elementary form of attack by a handful of Taliban fighters on a US convoy
or post could exceed a million dollars.
The retaliatory US exchange would normally include the following: thousands of
rounds of automatic fire, dozens of rounds of rocket and mortar fire, several
rounds of tank fire, hundreds of rounds of artillery fire, plus munitions and
missiles unleashed from the attack helicopters, and bombs and munitions dropped
by aircraft. To this not inconsiderable fire power of all types that would have
been expended has to be added the fuel cost for the helicopters and aircraft
called in for close support. Even without taking into consideration personnel
or vehicle casualties that may have resulted in the US force - generally caught
off guard, the initiative being with the enemy - the cost disparity might work
out to about one is to one million. It could become several millions should some
persons become casualties or if a tank or helicopter were to be destroyed.
Coming to Iraq the situation is different. Firstly, the terrain and engagement
patterns vary considerably. Much of the country is desert-like and flat, especially
where the main fighting is concentrated in the Sunni triangle. While ambushes
to road convoys and IED explosions can take place almost anywhere, insurgent
type attacks on US forces or their allies are mostly in built up areas. As opposed
to Afghanistan the casualties inflicted on US soldiers, in personnel and equipment
have generally been much higher. Again, varying greatly from Afghanistan, the
retaliatory fire from US forces is often of far greater intensity and longer
duration. The weapons mix is also different because in Iraq the insurgents often
get into buildings from where they are prepared to engage their opponents in
prolonged skirmishes. The savage bombing that follows results in massive infrastructure
damage. If the infrastructure damage costs were to be included the cost differential
for each skirmish between the insurgents and the US forces could work out to
well over 10 million to one in US dollar terms. Excluding infrastructure damage
the cost would still go up by an additional factor of three to five compared
to Afghanistan.
Suicide missions belong to a separate category for several reasons. To begin
with retaliatory fire is neither possible in most cases nor would it be required
because the target self-destructs along with whatever other carnage that might
have taken place by way of the number of people killed or wounded and the other
damage resulting from the detonations caused by the suicide bomber.
The analysis given above clearly brings out that over a period of time the elements
indulging in terror attacks against US or Western forces are able to extract
phenomenal costs from their adversaries, which purely in US dollar terms result
in adverse ratios varying from one is to one million or one is to several million.
Of late the number of incidents, which were already high in Iraq, have increased
in Afghanistan as well. Besides manpower losses which the Western democracies
can ill afford - and their opponents afford ad infinitum - the financial bleeding
that takes place is something that the US and its allies can ignore only at their
peril. It does not mean that technological superiority is given the go by. It
indicates, however, a change in military as well as geopolitical strategy. At
the operational level it requires a radical re-think in local level initiatives
and the tactics adopted by US forces and their allies in the field.
Taliban terror crippling Afghan Schools
Approximately 165 schools and colleges have been burnt down or forced to close
so far by resurgent Taliban and their Islamist allies. Five years after the end
of the Afghan war the Taliban seem to be back with a vengeance, one of their
main targets being the country’s education system. Educationists feel that
the campaign is intended, to terrorise families into keeping children uneducated,
unemployable, and a recruitment pool for the Islamists. Teachers are the main
targets. Some have been beheaded, others shot in front of their classes. One
was killed while attending his father’s funeral. They have declared that
only madrassas meeting their approval will be allowed to operate. One of the
attacks was on Kartilaya High in the center of Lashkar Gar, the provincial capital
of Helmand, which has 4,200 pupils, about half of them girls. Something similar
is being attempted in Kashmir and other parts of the subcontinent. Schools are
burned down, teachers beheaded and the students dealt with severely for disobeying
the fiats of the radicals. Rebuilding the schools becomes a costly proposition.
Reports from the tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan suggest that
the tribesmen fighting against the Pakistan Army could be going from strength
to strength. In fact, they could be expanding their influence in adjoining districts
as well. According to most analysts the situation in Pakistan’s tribal
badlands could be fast spiraling out of control. The Islamic radicals in Waziristan
can be seen to be a part of a fast-spreading pan-Islamic movement of radical
groups opposed to all those whom they consider to be enemies of Islam. The fight
against the forces of Kufr lead by America is seen to be a long drawn out one.
They are vehemently opposed to the Pakistan Army’s assistance to USA in
the War on Terror and might not even be satisfied with the ouster of US forces
from Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Pakistan Army who were the progenitors of
the Jihadi groups are slowly losing their hold on them, after having empowered
them politically in some of the states as also in the Pakistan assembly at the
cost of the mainstream political parties. Presently, the Pakistan Army continues
to be the strongest force in Pakistan. Gradually, it might end up by ceding its
preeminence and becoming the equal if not the junior partner of the Jihadis.
A future reversal along these lines of the patron-client relationship between
the Pakistan Army and the Jihadis could destabilize the entire region. In the
not too distant future it could also become the motive force for revitalizing
and further radicalizing the Muslim ummat worldwide.
In examining disproportionality ratios between the dispensers of global terror
and the forces deployed to counter it worldwide, added security costs that have
gone up considerably in several domains have to be factored. These relate to
heightened surveillance at airports, railways and bus terminuses, ports and dockyards,
nuclear plants, vital bridges and installations, water supplies and so many other
areas of enhanced vulnerability for civilian populations. Around the world, increased
security has been provided to persons considered vulnerable to targeting by terrorists
or their agents. Many businesses have seen their expenses go up considerably
due to increased insurance costs. The case of airlines and shipping lines has
been well documented. If all the costs that have gone up due to terror strikes,
especially after 9/11, are taken together the total cost worldwide could conceivably
run into tens of billions of dollars, possibly exceeding fifty billion dollars
annually. It has also to be noted that these are recurring costs that are likely
to continue till well into the future. Putting it all together the adverse ratios
that were already very high for governments and security forces dealing with
terrorists go up by several orders of magnitude, if the entire spectrum of enhanced
global security is taken into account. Terrorists win on two counts: massive
damage to civilians and property by the acts of terror plus the disproportionality
alluded to in the earlier paragraphs.
Since March 2003, the monthly cost of the war in Iraq has risen from $4.4 billion
to $7.1 billion, which means that the war could cost $266 billion more than originally
projected - and ultimately reach $1.2 trillion. Put in another way, Americans
so far have been paying approximately $46 million per Al Qaeda operative killed.
It is part of the reason for the soaring budget costs of the Defense Department.
In 2002 it was $310 billion. In 2005 it swelled to $420.6 billion. The well-known
Levy Institute estimates that the United States will owe foreigners $8 trillion
by 2008 - a hefty 60% of its gross domestic product.
Once the war-spending bill is passed, military and diplomatic costs will have
reached $101.8 billion in fiscal year 2006, up from $87.3 billion in 2005, $77.3
billion in 2004 and $51 billion in 2003, the year of the invasion, according
to congressional analysts. Even if a gradual troop withdrawal were to begin in
2006, war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to rise by $371 billion during
the phase-out, the report said, citing a congressional Budget Office study. When
factoring in costs of the war in Afghanistan, the $811 billion total for both
wars would have far exceeded the inflation-adjusted $549 billion cost of the
Vietnam War. The report details how operations, maintenance and procurement costs
have surged to $88 billion this year from $50 billion in 2004, citing rising
expenditures for body armor, oil and gasoline; equipment maintenance; and training
and equipping Afghan and Iraqi security forces. War-related investment costs
have more than tripled since 2003, to $24 billion from $7 billion, as money has
been spent on armored vehicles, radios, sensors and night-vision goggles, as
well as on equipment for reorganized U.S. Army and Marine Corps units. “These
reasons are not sufficient, however, to explain the level of increases,” the
report says.
The Wall Street journal. April 28 – May 1, 2006.
The Iraq war has already cost the US $320bn, according to a new authoritative
report – and even if a troop withdrawal were to begin in 2006, the conflict
is set to be more expensive than the Vietnam War, a generation ago. The estimate,
circulated by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, can only increase
unease over the US presence in Iraq, whose direct costs now run at some $6bn
a month, or $200m a day, with no end in sight. The Bush administration has refused
to provide any specific overall figure for the war’s cost. However even
if everything were to go relatively smoothly, costs until a phase-out is completed
could top $370bn. This would make the Iraq conflict, into its fourth year in
2006, more expensive in financial terms than the Vietnam War, which lasted eight
years.
Vietnam claimed 58,000 American lives, far more than the almost 3,000 lost in
Iraq thus far. But in today’s dollars it cost ‘only’ $549bn,
much less than $690bn for Iraq, and a projected combined $811bn bill of the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan. In January 2006 a study by Joseph Stiglitz, the Columbia
University economist and former Nobel Prize winner, and the Harvard lecturer
Linda Bilmes reckoned the conflict could ultimately cost $2 trillion, if all
factors were to be taken into account. These include the long term healthcare
costs for the 16,000 US soldiers already wounded in the conflict, and other indirect
or hidden costs such as the rise in the price of oil, the need to finance larger
budget deficits, higher recruiting costs and losses to the economy caused by
the wounded.
The Statesman, 1 May 2006, by Rupert Cornwell, The Independent.
Since 2001 over 400 coalition and NATO-led troops have been killed, half of them
in the past 18 months. As in Iraq, more and more have fallen victim to remote-controlled
bombs and suicide attacks. It was always said of Afghans that they were not the
suicidal type – until, in a dozen blasts last year, it turned out that
they were. Arabs, Central Asians and, especially, Pakistanis have also blown
themselves up.
Fortunately, their efforts have had limited success, but the Taliban seem to
be unconcerned about their own losses. They have recently readopted the tactic
of massing several scores of their fighters in ambushes, knowing that most would
be killed.
“
The world must find a better way to tackle the terrorism afflicting Afghanistan
or the West will suffer again”, president Hamid Karzai said after more
US soldiers died in clashes with the Taliban. “The US-led ‘war on
terror’ launched after the September 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks in the United
States has largely been limited to Afghan soil but should be extended to the
sources of terrorism. The international community needs to ‘reassess the
manner in which the war on terror is conducted’. Karzai added that he had
been in discussions with Afghanistan’s partners about a “change of
approach”.
“We can’t tolerate it forever… in the past three weeks five,
six hundred people have died in the country. We want an end to this, a basic
end to this.”
(The Times of India, June 24, 2006)
Several years earlier, CIA operatives had independently come to similar conclusions. “We’ve
got to change the rules,” the CIA’s bin Laden unit chief had argued
in the aftermath. It was time for the agency to try to break the policy stalemate
about the Taliban. Al Qaeda was growing, and its sanctuary in Afghanistan allowed
ever more ambitious operations. Within the CIA and at interagency White House
sessions the Counter terrorist Center officers spoke starkly. “Al Qaeda
is training and planning in Afghanistan, and their goal is to destroy the United
States,” they declared, as one official recalled it. “Unless we attack
their safe haven, they are going to get continually stronger and stronger.
(Daring me to Kill Them, Page no. 537-538. Ghost Wars by Steve Coll)
The logic a few years down the line can be applied in reverse. Today it is the
jehadi menace growing in the sanctuaries on the other side of the border in Pakistan
that threatens the stability of Afghanistan. It will continue to grow and exact
heavier and heavier toll on NATO and ISAF soldiers unless the trans border sanctuaries
are taken care of.
On another occasion a UK police commissioner speaking in a Southeast Asian capital
presciently said that “the threat is very grim, there’s no doubt
about it. There are, as we speak, people in the United Kingdom planning further
atrocities”.
Yet when the conspiracy was unearthed a month later in August the potential tragedy
that was prevented by rounding scores of people readying themselves for a chemical
attack in several commercial aircraft the flight disruptions and heightened security
measures had already added hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to the authorities
and to commercial enterprises and individuals due to the unforeseen dislocation.
The multiplication of costs whenever such incidents take place, are astronomical
compared to the outlays of the perpetrators of the horrors.
(Sir Ian Blair Police Commissioner. The Nation, Bangkok, Saturday,
July 8,
2006)
By not going to the source as Hamid Karzai suggested the countries fighting the
jehadi menace would always invariably remain at the receiving end. USA along
with its partners will have to set up far more effective networks to fight potential
terrorists at the source rather than relying on unreliable allies of an earlier
era. Intelligence operatives have long felt that the CIA and the White House
had become prisoners of their alliances with Saudi Arabia and Pakistani intelligence.
America was in a war against a dangerous terrorist network. As it waged that
war, it was placing far too much faith in unreliable allies. The CIA needed to
break out of its lazy dependence on liaisons with corrupt, Islamist-riddled intelligence
services such as the ISI and the Saudi General Intelligence Department, argued
one of the specialists working in the sector during the years when the Taliban
were running the show in Afghanistan. If it did not, he had insisted, the CIA
and the United States would pay a price.
(The Kingdom’s Interests, Page no. 415. Ghost Wars by Steve Coll).
Others in the US saw terrorism fundamentally as “a challenge to be managed,
not solved”. It was felt that terrorist attacks seemed likely to become
a permanent feature of American experience. The metaphor of waging “war” against
terrorism was objected to because “it is a war that cannot be won” and
also “unlike most wars, it has neither a fixed set of enemies nor the prospect
of coming to closure.” A better analogy than war might be “the effort
by public health authorities to control communicable diseases.” A lesson
of American counter terrorism efforts since the 1980s was that the threat could
not be defeated, only “reduced, attenuated, and to some degree controlled.” Striving
for zero terrorist attacks would be as unhealthy for American foreign policy
as pushing for zero unemployment would be for the economy, one expert believed.
In a broad sense, the expert’s outlook accorded with Clinton’s: Terrorism
was an inevitable feature of global change.
(bid.We are at War, page no. 433)
At another place in the book it is mentioned that Paul Wolfowitz, Bush’s
influential deputy defense secretary, had concluded by then that the war against
al Qaeda was something different from going after individual acts of terrorism.
This was a change from how terrorism had been managed the last time the Republicans
held power. Wolfowitz could see, as he recalled it, that “it really does
involve all the elements of national power, that it’s not just something
for the intelligence community alone.’ As to the regional questions, he
concluded it was impossible to destroy al Qaeda “without recognizing the
role that the government of Afghanistan is playing.
(Many Americans are Going to Die, page no. 565. GHOST WARS: The Secret History
of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September
10, 2001 by Steve Coll, Penguin books).
Paul Wolfowitz logic again goes to show that a few years down the line the situation
in Afghanistan cannot be stabilized unless the threat from across the border
is tackled. Otherwise the casualties to the coalition forces would keep mounting
at disproportionately minimal cost to the opponents.
Iraq has already cost America more than $250 billion, and economists are now
debating the future price tag. Estimates of the eventual cost range from just
over $400 billion to more than $2 trillion.
How high will the price tag go? Harvard University’s Linda Bilmes and Columbia
University’s Joseph Stiglitz (a Nobel laureate and chief economic adviser
in Bill Clinton’s administration), reckon that the war could cost America
an eye-catching $2,24 trillion through 2015. Scott Wallsten and Katrina Kosec,
in a study for the AEI-Brookings Joint Centre, predict that the war will eventually
cost America $540 billion-670 billion. (On the AEI-Brookings website, they have
also posted an interactive calculator that lets visitors make their own forecasts)
A third study, by three economists at the University of Chicago’s business
school – Steven Davis, Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel – and based
on what was known before the war, gives seven scenarios for it, of which the
likeliest two (with some hindsight) suggest a final cost between $410 billion
and $630 billion.
Why is the Bilmes/Stiglitz estimate so high? Partly because they attribute a
number of economic ills – oil prices, interest costs and foregone government
projects – to the war in Iraq. These seem questionable claims. Oil prices
are indeed much higher now than in early 2003, but the war’s impact on
global oil supplies has been relatively small; a surging world economy has driven
up demand. Including the interest payments on America’s Iraq spending is
also strange.
Stripping out these “macroeconomic effects” still leaves a forecast
of between $840 billion and $1.19 trillion through 2015, much more expensive
than the others. Two of the studies come up with similar tallies for soldiers’ pay,
weapons, ammunition and supplies; but the estimates for these from Ms. Bilmes
and Mr. Stiglitz are about $100 billion or so higher.
Casualties – the human half of the “blood and treasure” equation – are
also a big part of the cost to America, and all three studies treat them as such.
Efforts to attach dollar figures to human life offend some people, but governments
and courts do it often for insurance cases, disability payments, safety regulation
and so forth.
The Chicago economists treat these in a similar way to Mr. Wallsten and Ms. Kosec,
attaching a cost to every soldier killed in Iraq of $6m-7m. Both studies assume
an average cost of $1.3m for every wounded soldier. Ms. Bilmes and Mr. Stiglitz,
again going further, add on to this another $3 billion annually that they expect
the government to spend on veteran’s care over the next 20-40 years, and
also add another $70 billion –110 billion to the AEI-Brookings Study’s
injury costs. Some economists say this is double counting; Ms. Bilmes says it
is not. Her paper is not clear enough to judge.
(The Economist, April 8th 2006)
The New York Times, December 31, 2002. “According to CBO’s estimates,
from the time U.S. forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, $290 billion has been allocated
for activities in Iraq. Additional costs over the 2007-2016 period would total
an estimated $202 billion under the first [optimistic] scenario, and $406 billion
under the second one.” Congressional Budget Office, July 13, 2006.
(The Hindu, July 13, 2006 by Paul Krugman)
That the Taliban are on a comeback trail in Afghanistan is no longer in doubt.
They seem to have moved into southern Afghanistan in a big way, assassinating
opponents, ambushing military patrols and generally terrorizing parts of the
population opposed to them. Many US experts and defense analysts have felt that
the resurgent Taliban pose a greater threat to Hamid Karzai’s government
at the present time than at any point since the fall of Kabul in October 2001.
The insurgency in southern Afghanistan appears to be a loose alliance of Taliban
fighters, Al-Qaeda supporters and followers of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Taliban commander Mullah Dadallah reportedly told Al Jazeera in May 2006 that
the insurgents could call on 12000 fighters. As to how and why Afghanistan seems
to be again coming under the sway of the (vanquished) Taliban is a question that
requires a fresh look. There is hardly any doubt that the Taliban could not have
made a comeback without the tacit support of the Pakistan military establishment
or, as is generally suggested by various observers, without the active help of
sympathizers and rogue elements in Pakistan’s ISI. For several years from
2002 to date the US has been overlooking many Pakistani transgressions. Pakistan
even floated the idea of moderate Taliban for consumption by Hamid Karzai and
his US backers.
There is now a belief in some circles that Osama bin Laden was allowed to escape
from the Tora Bora complex after its saturation bombing. Instead of the few thousand
US marines that were positioned there for mopping-up, the actual mopping up was
entrusted to local Afghan warlords. Osama bin Laden, it is said, crossed into
Pakistan and was whisked way by the Pakistanis, who reportedly even provided
him emergency medical care. There can be little doubt that some sort of a tacit
understanding was arrived at between the State Department headed by General Colin
Powell and President Musharraf. It is for the same reason that the biggest nuclear
proliferator of all times, A.Q. Khan was given a pardon by the Pakistani President
and not handed over to the US authorities. He is still not being made available
for questioning by US experts and, according to some knowledgeable sources the
proliferation goes on.
The deal that might have been struck with Pervez Musharraf – which now
appears to have gone sour after the change of guard at the State Department – apparently
included the disarming of some of the Afghan warlords. In the case of the militias
that formed the Northern Alliance the removal of heavy weapons was completed
very satisfactorily. Such was not the case for the warlords operating in southern
and eastern Afghanistan. Pakistan had invested heavily in Washington lobbies
to ensure that the 9/11 Commission heads – both the Republican and the
Democrat heads – removed the most critical references to Pakistan’s
complicity from the final commission text that was released for publication.
Several governments would now be interested, paying sums equivalent to those
paid by Pakistan, perhaps more, to find out details of the omitted portions.
This input would be of crucial importance to the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile the only effective force that would have been in a position to counter
the Taliban – the erstwhile militias forming the Northern Alliance, separately
or conjointly - has been effectively disbanded, even demolished under American
pressure. Should the US forces decide to pull out of Afghanistan or considerably
reduce their presence, the Taliban would be able to occupy most areas of Afghanistan
without let or hindrance. The NATO and ISAF bases would continue to remain in
isolated splendor in Kabul and a few other places. Their capacity to go after
the Taliban pro-actively would become limited. The Taliban cadres, with the clandestine
backing of the Pakistan establishment, would not face much difficulty in extending
its sway over large swathes of Afghanistan, even in the north. Central Asian
republics would again be under severe threat.
Copyright @ Vinod Saighal
March 2007
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