The latest Pentagon figures show that more than 16,000 military personnel have been wounded in Iraq. Thankfully, due to improvements in body armor, there has been an unusually high number of soldiers who have survived major wounds such as brain damage, spinal injuries and amputations.
However, in addition to the actual costs of war, medical care and disabilty bill is also mounting. The cost of lifetime care for the thousands of troops who have suffered brain injuries alone could run to $35 Billion.
Taking in increased defense spending as a result of the war, veterans' disability payments and demobilization costs could reach a price tag of $1 trillion.
[Source: Joseph Stiglitz, a former World Bank chief economist, and Columbia University professor who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2001]
No comments:
Post a Comment