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The Spectacle Blog
George Packer made a serious accusation against Indiana governor Mitch Daniels yesterday, which has been echoed by other commentators. Reacting to Ross Douthat’s Times article praising Daniels and portraying him as potentially the best Republican candidate for 2012, Packer wrote:
Daniels was Bush’s head of the Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2003…. He was responsible for forecasting the budget in the event of a war with Iraq. His number came in at fifty to sixty billion dollars. Compared to what some experts were forecasting, it was an astonishingly low figure. But even Daniels’s projection was too much for the Bush White House, which was intent on keeping unpleasant scenarios about the war out of the public eye…. Lawrence Lindsey, Bush’s top economic adviser, had said the war could cost as much as two hundred billion, and Daniels had dismissed the figure as “very, very high.” As for the cost of rebuilding Iraq, by April of 2003-with the war already under way-O.M.B. had asked Congress for the paltry sum of 2.5 billion. By the end of last year, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had cost over a trillion dollars.
Packer’s claim here, that Daniels’s 2003 forecast of Iraq war costs was short by 900-plus billion dollars, is inaccurate. The forecast that Packer is referring to, the one about which Lindsey and Daniels disagreed, is the forecast for Iraq war appropriations supplemental to the 2003 budget. The “fifty to sixty billion dollars” that Daniels projected were only supposed to cover the costs of the war for the next six months — through the end of fiscal year 2003.
And Daniels’s projections turned out to be too high, not too low. The chart below can be found on Page 5 of the 2007 CBO report on the costs from the war on terrorism:
As you can see, military operations in Iraq totaled $46 billion in 2003, far less than the $63 billion Daniels budgeted.
Packer uses the false claim regarding the 2003 supplemental Iraq appropriation in his denunciation of Daniels. Emphasis mine:
What worries me is that Daniels’s projection was the budgetary equivalent of the Rumsfeld Pentagon’s failure to commit enough troops for the occupation. “Very, very high” reminds me of what Paul Wolfowitz said in response to General Eric Shinseki’s estimate that stabilizing Iraq would take several hundred thousand troops: he dismissed it as “wildly off the mark.” Wolfowitz and Daniels weren’t just mistaken. They were guaranteeing that the Administration wouldn’t be ready if things went wrong. They were contributing directly to the disaster that followed the fall of Saddam. And they were acting out of ideological conviction or bureaucratic loyalty rather than cold analytical judgment. In short, when the stakes were as high as possible, Daniels showed very little independence or common sense, the qualities that Douthat credits him with.
That’s a damning accusation to make without checking that the main premise is correct. Unless Packer is withholding other information that shows that Daniels intentionally downplayed the expected costs of the war, his diatribe seems awfully close to pure slander.
In the remainder of that post, Packer makes another, separate charge against Daniels — that he “nickeled and dimed” the Coalition Provisional Authority tasked with stabilizing Iraq. This is also a very serious claim, but given the level of caution that Packer showed in his first accusation, I’m tempted to disregard it.
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More Blog Posts by Joseph Lawler
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/03/02/did-mitch-daniels-fudge-the-ir
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Overlander| 3.2.10 @ 8:58PM
Glad to see someone actually researched the facts before wildly posting misleading information like Packer. Great job.
Janet Van der Dussen| 4.1.10 @ 11:56AM
The debate in this article simply doesn't addres the central issue: The Iraq War has cost more than anyone, anywhere, anyhow, project. Instead of 6 months or 6 years this war has lasted 10 years and has drained the US economy. Think of the health care that could have been provided to all people in the United States had we not been lied to about WMD's and drawn into a preemptive strike. My Man Mitch - You make me sick.
Janet
MarlinsFan| 3.2.10 @ 10:41PM
Good piece!
I think Packer said Daniels was off 900 Billion not Trillion, but as you pointed out, numbers aren't Packer's strong suit so I wouldn't be surprised.
FanofTruth| 3.2.10 @ 11:17PM
A very well written and insightful post.
Tom| 3.3.10 @ 12:09AM
The piece by Mr. Packer could not be more invalid as this rebuttal claims
The Governor also rebutted those remarks on a C-span Q&A Start at the 18:30 mark. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/286816-1
Lets not forget that estimate was about the WAR and not OCCUPATION. A budget is made only upon the request of the Executive and what constraints are given to those crunching the numbers.
As a former citizen of the state of Indiana I still consider Mr. Daniels MY MAN and MY GOVERNOR. He brought real reform with common sentience and often simple ideas.
This is not a conservative issue or a liberal issue its about making things work, and the only way many can aim to cut-down Gov. Daniels is to go after his subservient job at the OMB because his policy when he has been in charge has been sound.
MikeC| 8.15.10 @ 8:13AM
Daniel's position in the cheney bush team and his support for the occupation of Iraq and complicity in misleading the American Public should have led to his exit from public life. This was not a war per say, but an invasion and occupation. Daniels has the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands, just as the rest of the cheney bush team have.
Mike| 3.3.10 @ 10:56AM
"As you can see, military operations in Iraq totaled $46 billion in 2003, far less than the $63 billion Daniels budgeted."
I guess I'm supposed to be comforted by the fact that we borrowed $17 billion less from China than Daniels budgeted.
You guys are moving the chairs around on the Titanic.
Pingback| 3.3.10 @ 12:24PM
Mitch Daniels and the Iraq War - Ross Douthat Blog - NYTimes.com links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Cris Worth| 3.3.10 @ 3:48PM
All U.S wars since 1945 have been undeclared. For some reason Congress allows whoever is President to send troops into battle without a declaration of war. Clear example...Oregon senator Wayne Morse bulldogged LBJ on this issue concerning the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution calling it right…carte blanche escalation of the Vietnam War without Congress declaring war. In wake of this disastrous war the 1973 War Powers Act was a good start to stop this abuse but no President follows it and Congress doesn't enforce it. When will they ever learn?
Pingback| 3.4.10 @ 5:47PM
Hugh Jackman Joins Lee Daniels' 'Selma' – Cinematical | Hugh Jackman Celebrity Monito links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
atlasfugged| 9.11.10 @ 11:10PM
Lawler says: "The "fifty to sixty billion dollars" that Daniels projected were only supposed to cover the costs of the war for the next six months -- through the end of fiscal year 2003".
This is misleading. It implies that the OMB was only requesting, at the time, an amount that was intended to pay for a fraction of the war. According to whitehouse.gov link that Lawler provides above (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/speeches_senior_admin032403/), in the OMB and DoD's estimations at the time, "the war for the next six months -- through the end of fiscal year 2003" was indistinguishable from the projected duration of the entire war. The Administration claimed the entire war - from the invasion to a phased withdrawal - would take six months. In other words, the OMB's $63-billion estimate for 6-months of the Iraq War (which also included $4-billion for reconstruction) was, effectively, its estimate for the entire cost of the war, not just a fraction of its duration. The official quoted in the aforementioned link also projected that the entire cost of reconstruction would be a paltry $25-billion. This sum included the cost of rebuilding Iraq's decrepit oil industry. Reconstruction costs, thus far, are at least twice that amount (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/29/world/main6816634.shtml).
Packer was not inaccurate.