War in Iraq versus Containment*
...Prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the United States, Britain and their allies pursued a policy of containment authorized by the United Nations Security Council. Major elements of the policy included economic sanctions on Iraq, disarmament requirements, weapons inspections, Northern and Southern no-fly zones within Iraq, and maritime interdiction to enforce trade restrictions. Continued containment was the leading option to war and forcible regime change. We analyze these two policy options, war and containment, with attention to three questions:
• In terms of military resources and expenditures for humanitarian assistance and reconstruction, is war more or less costly for the United States than a policy of continued containment?
• Compared to war and forcible regime change, would a continuation of the containment policy have saved Iraqi lives?
• Is war likely to bring about an improvement or deterioration in the economic well-being of Iraqis?
...Forcible regime change in Iraq has proved to be a costly undertaking. As of January 2006, it appears likely that the Iraq intervention will ultimately unfold along a path that implies present value costs for the United States in the range of 410 to 630 billion in 2003 dollars.
...The high cost of the Iraq intervention is sometimes seen as a compelling argument against the decision to forcibly overthrow the ruling order and install a new regime. This argument is deficient because it ignores the costs of alternative responses to the national security and humanitarian concerns presented by the pre-war Iraqi regime. A wellfounded verdict on the Iraq intervention requires, at a minimum, an evaluation of what these alternatives would cost.
...Factoring the contingencies into the analysis yields present value costs for the containment policy in the range of $350 to $700 billion.
...We also consider the consequences of the war-versus containment choice in two other respects: the economic well-being of Iraqis, and the loss of Iraqi lives. Based on our analysis, we conclude that the war will lead to large improvements in the economic wellbeing of most Iraqis relative to their prospects under the policy of containment. This conclusion follows from some basic observations. First, the Iraqi economy was in terrible condition before the war, and it would have remained in a sorry state under the policy of containment. Second, the regime of Saddam Hussein was an economic failure of tremendous proportions. The available evidence suggests that real income per capita fell by roughly 75 percent as a consequence of Saddam’s misrule. In addition, much of Iraq’s greatly diminished output was diverted to an oversized military, an apparatus of terror and repression and the relentless glorification of Saddam. Third, the removal of sanctions, the expansion of petroleum exports, large-scale reconstruction aid, and the reintegration of Iraq’s economy into the world economy provide a strong basis for economic gains – even in a society with serious institutional weaknesses. If, over the course of a generation, Iraqis recover even half of the economic losses they suffered under Saddam Hussein, then they will be significantly better off in material terms as a consequence of forcible regime change.
The economic failures of the Saddam Hussein regime were not its greatest crimes. The regime brought torture, repression, displacement and death to huge numbers of Iraqis and others. We review some of the evidence in this regard, drawing heavily on work by others. All told, the regime killed or caused the deaths of more than 500,000 Iraqis. Under the policy of containment after the 1991 Gulf War, a reasonable estimate is that at least 200,000 Iraqis died prematurely at the hands of the regime or as a direct consequence of its policies, including its refusal to comply with U.N. Security Council Resolutions and its diversion of oil revenues and other resources to palaces and monuments. Had containment remained in effect, the historical record suggests that premature Iraqi deaths would have continued indefinitely at the rate of 10,000 to 30,000 per year.
...Perhaps the strongest reason to question this assessment is the possibility that a post-war Iraq could devolve into an extended and large-scale civil war. This possibility cannot be ruled out. What can be ruled out in light of the evidence is that the leading alternative to war involved little loss of Iraqi lives.
