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American Morning
Minding Your Business: The Cost of War in Iraq
Aired April 17, 2003 - 07:54 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Andy Serwer is checking in now. The Pentagon is putting a multibillion-dollar price tag on the war so far. We heard the numbers yesterday.
Good morning, how high is it going to go so far?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you.
Twenty billion dollars, that's the number we're hearing this morning from the Pentagon. You know there was a lot of speculation, you guys, about how much the war would cost. We're starting to get the word from the brass down there in northern Virginia.
Here's how it breaks down. You can see there, 10 to 12 for the actual operations personnel, 6 billion munitions. That would be your bombs and bullets, $3 billion. Twenty billion so far. It's been about a month from March 19. They're saying that it will cost about $2 billion a month going forward, so another $10 billion by September.
And you know, the Congress has appropriated the $62 billion, so you can see we spent 20 out of the 62, maybe another 10 by September, not quite as bad as some of those doomsayers.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: It doesn't seem -- it doesn't seem particularly high. If the war had gone on obviously for...
SERWER: Right.
CAFFERTY: ... two or three or four months, as some feared it might in the beginning, it could have been a lot higher.
SERWER: And that's what Larry Lindsey was saying,...
CAFFERTY: Sure.
SERWER: ... at one point, that worst case scenario, the $100 billion. And you know the question of course is what price peace, what price security, how much does it cost, how much is it worth to America and then we won't really know until we see how effective the war in Iraq really is in the long run.
HEMMER: That's a great point. What price security I think ultimately will determine...
CAFFERTY: I have just one little question, if they don't spend all of this money, are they going to give it back?
SERWER: No, Jack, they don't do that. And you know the overall Pentagon budget of course is $360 billion, so this is just a piece of the overall budget. I mean it's just amazing how much money we spend on defense.
HEMMER: Quickly, the stock market today, how's it looking?
SERWER: Well the futures are up this morning, Bill. Yesterday it was down on the Dow, 144 points. Nasdaq up a bit. Good news from the tech sector. And Microsoft, as you might have mentioned earlier, was doing OK. And we will see no trading tomorrow. Today's the last day of the week.
HEMMER: That's right.
SERWER: Right. Yes.
HEMMER: Thank you, Drew.
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 April 17, 2003 - 07:54 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Andy Serwer is checking in now. The Pentagon is putting a multibillion-dollar price tag on the war so far. We heard the numbers yesterday.
Good morning, how high is it going to go so far?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you.
Twenty billion dollars, that's the number we're hearing this morning from the Pentagon. You know there was a lot of speculation, you guys, about how much the war would cost. We're starting to get the word from the brass down there in northern Virginia.
Here's how it breaks down. You can see there, 10 to 12 for the actual operations personnel, 6 billion munitions. That would be your bombs and bullets, $3 billion. Twenty billion so far. It's been about a month from March 19. They're saying that it will cost about $2 billion a month going forward, so another $10 billion by September.
And you know, the Congress has appropriated the $62 billion, so you can see we spent 20 out of the 62, maybe another 10 by September, not quite as bad as some of those doomsayers.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: It doesn't seem -- it doesn't seem particularly high. If the war had gone on obviously for...
SERWER: Right.
CAFFERTY: ... two or three or four months, as some feared it might in the beginning, it could have been a lot higher.
SERWER: And that's what Larry Lindsey was saying,...
CAFFERTY: Sure.
SERWER: ... at one point, that worst case scenario, the $100 billion. And you know the question of course is what price peace, what price security, how much does it cost, how much is it worth to America and then we won't really know until we see how effective the war in Iraq really is in the long run.
HEMMER: That's a great point. What price security I think ultimately will determine...
CAFFERTY: I have just one little question, if they don't spend all of this money, are they going to give it back?
SERWER: No, Jack, they don't do that. And you know the overall Pentagon budget of course is $360 billion, so this is just a piece of the overall budget. I mean it's just amazing how much money we spend on defense.
HEMMER: Quickly, the stock market today, how's it looking?
SERWER: Well the futures are up this morning, Bill. Yesterday it was down on the Dow, 144 points. Nasdaq up a bit. Good news from the tech sector. And Microsoft, as you might have mentioned earlier, was doing OK. And we will see no trading tomorrow. Today's the last day of the week.
HEMMER: That's right.
SERWER: Right. Yes.
HEMMER: Thank you, Drew.
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
