US troop buildup carries high costs

If President Barack Obama orders tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan next Tuesday as expected, there will be an enormous human and financial cost, piling more pressure on a stretched force and fueling a massive budget deficit.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday it costs about a million dollars per year for each deployed US soldier, beyond the expense of training and maintaining a security force.

Burdened by two wars, the American military already has more than 180,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and will have to draw on the handful of brigades remaining to carry out Obama's plan, expected to see the deployment of some 34,000 more troops.

With the vast majority of active duty forces committed to Afghan and Iraq operations, analysts warn Washington will have few troops at the ready if another crisis erupts elsewhere.

Casualties have been steadily rising since Obama took office, and sending in more troops will mean more encounters with Afghan insurgents, who are killing and wounding NATO soldiers with crude homemade bombs.

More than 800 American soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan, and October was the deadliest month since the start of the war in 2001 with 74 US soldiers killed.

Obama "must prepare the US and the world for the fact that the present level of US, allied, Afghan, and Pakistani casualties will almost certainly double and probably more than triple before something approaching victory is won," Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote last week.

Obama's plan also hinges on a calculated risk that a steady troop drawdown will be possible in Iraq, freeing up forces for Afghanistan.

But if conditions there deteriorate and elections are postponed for months, plans for sending more brigades to Afghanistan could be thrown into doubt.

The troop buildup comes just as the military had begun to recover from the effect of the "surge" in Iraq under former president George W. Bush, when year-long combat tours were extended to 15 months and time at home curtailed.

Amid an alarming rise in depression, traumatic brain injuries and suicides among soldiers, retired generals have warned the army could be permanently damaged by the strain of two wars.

But top US military officer Admiral Mike Mullen insists the armed forces are not yet at a "tipping point."

Mullen cites the "surge" of US troops in Iraq two years ago as a model, saying soldiers were buoyed by success there. And he says the US Army and Marines have expanded the size of their forces to ease the strain.

But military surveys show morale declining in army units in Afghanistan and marital problems rising for soldiers who have had three or more combat tours. One in five lower-ranking soldiers serving in Afghanistan suffer from acute stress, anxiety or depression.

Suicides in the army hit a record level last year, with 140 taking their lives, and are on track to reach a new high this year.

Apart from the human toll, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost 768.8 billion dollars so far and by the end of this fiscal year, the price tag will approach one trillion.

The average monthly cost of Afghan operations comes to more than three billion and will continue to grow as more troops pour in.

Moving soldiers and supplies across the rugged Afghan landscape costs more than in Iraq, with the military consuming 83 liters or 22 gallons of fuel per soldier per day.

The Pentagon estimates the cost of sending and supporting one soldier in Afghanistan at about 500,000 dollars, while White House budget experts say the price is closer to one million.

Spending on the war will feed a ballooning deficit that some analysts fear could undermine the country's fragile economy, while liberals in Congress worry the costly mission will wipe out the prospect for bold domestic reforms.

Obama now faces the task of convincing Americans that the war is worth more sacrifices in blood and treasure.

Before his decision, Obama said the burden of war on troops and their families will "bear on how I see these conflicts."

"It is something I think about each and every day," he said.

Those who favor bolstering troop levels in Afghanistan acknowledge the armed forces will be under strain, but say defeat at the hands of Afghan insurgents could be even more damaging for the military.

"If we draw down our forces in Afghanistan in a way that causes defeat, this would also have a damaging effect on the health of the military," Stephen Biddle, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told AFP.

"It took a long time, as we may recall, for the military to recover from the effects of defeat in Vietnam. So we face a true dilemma."