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American Morning
Minding Your Business: Cost of War
Aired February 26, 2003 - 07:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There are some new White House estimates out about a war against Iraq and what it might cost.
Here with that, and first up a market preview, is Andy Serwer, who is "Minding Your Business."
Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Paula.
Yesterday, a wild ride on Wall Street. Those consumer confidence numbers that Jack Cafferty was talking about early on rocked stocks. We were down triple digits, but then finished the day up -- you can see here -- 51 points on the Dow. Rumors of a peaceful settlement in Iraq, and also some good housing numbers helped to get things going in the afternoon.
I want to talk about these new numbers about the war in Iraq, though. A very fascinating article in "The Wall Street Journal" this morning. Apparently, the Bush administration is preparing a request for an additional $60 to $95 billion to fight the war in Iraq.
And the interesting thing here is you can see, it's factored in as reconstruction, aid to allies such as Turkey, variables, of course, how big again will the damage be, how much aid will we get from the allies to offset this.
The $95 billion, of course, is very close to the 100 billion that Larry Lindsey was talking about, the president's former chief economic advisor. He got in a lot of trouble for that, saying that's a huge number. And now, it looks like we're getting close to that number.
Now, $95 billion, keep that number in mind. How much do you think that is compared to the cost of previous wars that we've fought?
ZAHN: I want to know that answer, and I want to know who is going to pick up what portion of the tab.
SERWER: Well...
ZAHN: I dont know if they did that analysis yet.
SERWER: Yes, they have not done an analysis, yes.
ZAHN: Because during Desert Storm...
SERWER: Right. ZAHN: ... it divided a little bit differently than they think it's going to be divided this time.
SERWER: Well, after they get people on board, then they start giving them the bill. I mean, they don't even have enough countries on board yet, so we'll have to see about that.
But comparing it to previous wars, a really interesting exercise we've done here -- or "The Wall Street Journal" has done. This is in current dollars, Paula. So in other words, the Revolutionary War, if it was fought today, the cost would be $2 billion -- not that much. The Civil War, 62. And you can see World War II, 2.9 trillion, so it would dwarf the spending for the war in Iraq. And you can see the Persian Gulf War, that's something that you can really kind of chew on, 76 billion back in the '90s versus the 95 they're anticipating. Vietnam and Korea, those far outstripping that, you can see.
ZAHN: That's really interesting.
SERWER: Isn't that really interesting? And again, that's in current dollars, so that is a real apples-to-apples comparison. But you know, the Revolutionary...
ZAHN: I've never seen that projection...
(CROSSTALK)
SERWER: And it's really interesting. The Revolutionary War was cheap, right? Only $2 billion.
ZAHN: Oh, what a bargain.
SERWER: Yes, I -- you're telling me, right?
ZAHN: Oh, boy!
SERWER: We've got this country for $2 billion, right?
ZAHN: Thanks, Andy.
SERWER: OK.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired February 26, 2003 - 07:43 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There are some new White House estimates out about a war against Iraq and what it might cost.
Here with that, and first up a market preview, is Andy Serwer, who is "Minding Your Business."
Good morning.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Paula.
Yesterday, a wild ride on Wall Street. Those consumer confidence numbers that Jack Cafferty was talking about early on rocked stocks. We were down triple digits, but then finished the day up -- you can see here -- 51 points on the Dow. Rumors of a peaceful settlement in Iraq, and also some good housing numbers helped to get things going in the afternoon.
I want to talk about these new numbers about the war in Iraq, though. A very fascinating article in "The Wall Street Journal" this morning. Apparently, the Bush administration is preparing a request for an additional $60 to $95 billion to fight the war in Iraq.
And the interesting thing here is you can see, it's factored in as reconstruction, aid to allies such as Turkey, variables, of course, how big again will the damage be, how much aid will we get from the allies to offset this.
The $95 billion, of course, is very close to the 100 billion that Larry Lindsey was talking about, the president's former chief economic advisor. He got in a lot of trouble for that, saying that's a huge number. And now, it looks like we're getting close to that number.
Now, $95 billion, keep that number in mind. How much do you think that is compared to the cost of previous wars that we've fought?
ZAHN: I want to know that answer, and I want to know who is going to pick up what portion of the tab.
SERWER: Well...
ZAHN: I dont know if they did that analysis yet.
SERWER: Yes, they have not done an analysis, yes.
ZAHN: Because during Desert Storm...
SERWER: Right. ZAHN: ... it divided a little bit differently than they think it's going to be divided this time.
SERWER: Well, after they get people on board, then they start giving them the bill. I mean, they don't even have enough countries on board yet, so we'll have to see about that.
But comparing it to previous wars, a really interesting exercise we've done here -- or "The Wall Street Journal" has done. This is in current dollars, Paula. So in other words, the Revolutionary War, if it was fought today, the cost would be $2 billion -- not that much. The Civil War, 62. And you can see World War II, 2.9 trillion, so it would dwarf the spending for the war in Iraq. And you can see the Persian Gulf War, that's something that you can really kind of chew on, 76 billion back in the '90s versus the 95 they're anticipating. Vietnam and Korea, those far outstripping that, you can see.
ZAHN: That's really interesting.
SERWER: Isn't that really interesting? And again, that's in current dollars, so that is a real apples-to-apples comparison. But you know, the Revolutionary...
ZAHN: I've never seen that projection...
(CROSSTALK)
SERWER: And it's really interesting. The Revolutionary War was cheap, right? Only $2 billion.
ZAHN: Oh, what a bargain.
SERWER: Yes, I -- you're telling me, right?
ZAHN: Oh, boy!
SERWER: We've got this country for $2 billion, right?
ZAHN: Thanks, Andy.
SERWER: OK.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
