Remember back in the 1980s when we armed both sides of the Iran-Iraq War and then sat back and watched them kill each other? Ahhh, those were the days. We could have done the same thing in Libya and watched al Qaeda madmen and Kadhafi henchmen eliminate each other but no. Not with military genius Barack Obama at the helm.
CBS News details the President’s expensive expedition:
One week after an international military coalition intervened in Libya, the cost to U.S. taxpayers has reached at least $600 million, according figures provided by the Pentagon.
U.S. ships and submarines in the Mediterranean have launched at least 191Tomahawk cruise missiles from their arsenals, costing $268.8 million, the Pentagon said.
U.S. warplanes have dropped 455 precision guided bombs, costing tens of thousands of dollars each.
A downed Air Force F-15E fighter jet will cost more than $60 million to replace.
And operation of ships and aircraft, guzzling ever-more-expensive fuel to maintain their positions off the Libyan coast and in the skies above, could reach millions of dollars a week, experts say.“Each sortie, even if it drops no munitions, is very pricey,” said Winslow Wheeler of the Center for Defense Information. “These airplanes cost us tens of thousands of dollars to operate per hour, and the fancier you get in terms of planes, the costs get truly astounding.”
Nearly $100 million a day. Just imagine how many bloated public employee pensions that could have paid.
Wait. That may not have been the best example we could have come up with. Give us a couple minutes. Check back later. We’ll do better.
Source: CBS News
