US Military Intervention in Libya Cost At Least $896 Million

Did the Pentagon really wait to release that until it was determined NATO won, or is this just one of those amazing coincidences?
Yeah, it must be a coincidence.

I was young, but remember President Eisenhower’s farewell speach warning about the Military-Industrial complex. He was right!

My mistake…nearly a billion. Still a big waste.

what is america getting,any strategic value, any oil? what about the people in us who need it, charity begins a home? After iraq it was all the countries who did nothing that got the oil.

Lol, Mike your math needs a little work. 896 million is close to 1 BILLION, not 1 trillion.

Yay! We got rid of another dictator! Now we can sit back and watch Libya, Egypt and others take on an even worse political situation. The devil you know…

Not bad….less than 1 billion to successfully oust a ruthless dictator. How much did Bush’s wars cost? 5 TRILLION? 5000 times more. I’m glad I voted for Obama!

Maybe present-dent Bumbling Barry Oblamo will use his campaign cash to pay for his illegal war?

Zero American casualties, at a cost of less than $1 billion, K-Daffy looking for a spider hole. Contrast that to the Bush Blunders. Looking for a ‘Mission Accomplished” banner. Word is there’s one out there, barely used.

A bargain at twice the price for the defeat of the 40 yr rule of a tyrant responsible for murdering about 200 Americans. Plus the kudos of freeing a Muslim country. In perspective, $890 million ain’t that much. It’s about the same as the Chicago public school system deficit. Or one twentieth of Texas’s budget deficit. (Thanks Gov. Perry) Or the same as how much U.S. consumers spent online the Monday following Thanksgiving last year. Not bad, not bad at all.

No fan of of Gadhafi, but it was just stupid, not to mention against us law to try to assassinate him in his family home. H. Chavez is already pulling all his assets out of the US and NATO countries getting ready so he can take the first shot. And we are going to take the high road…
This stupid act has needlessly endangered the US and Europe beyond any ones imagination

I find it hard to believe 35,000 sorties cost only 900 million. Theirs always the hidden expenses. And the hidden hidden expenses. Of course theirs the kickback to the Obama re election campaign.

Nothing like going into further debt to help build the Caliphate. The baby boomers that control our government really have no idea what they are doing. Or do they?

Not only will the rebels have to unite in their desire to have a stable govt. but they will not get help from NATO or the USA if they have any Islamofascist parts. The tribes will have revenge. 900 million is not a bad cost…..ifif if the Libyans have a democratic republic with free enterprise as the outcome. If not, Obama will not be able to crow much.

That’s the price of rushing into a civil war before knowing who the rebel are, who’s funding and supporting them, where they are getting their weapons, who their leaders are, whether the are socialists, communists or Islamic extremists, and what is their plan is when the revolution is over – what type of government will they install,
We’ll soon find out the answers to these questions, and what we wasted our money on.

Why would the right wings laugh at progressives who are for this “war” ? This one was for helping people revolt against their oppressive regime, not about unilaterally calling a change of regime when its people are not for a change of the said regime … a slight nuance that I wish some short minded people would be able to understand.
This is exactly what freedom nations should do, help people [to not being killed] who are toppling a dictatorship rather than invading a country for, supposingly, bringing freedom by force …

Why would the right wings laugh at progressives who are for this “war” ? This one was for helping people revolt against their oppressive regime, not about unilaterally calling a change of regime when its people are not for a change of the said regime … a slight nuance that I wish some short minded people would be able to understand.
This is exactly what freedom nations should do, help people [to not being killed] who are toppling a dictatorship rather than invading a country for, supposingly, bringing freedom by force …
Posted by: David | Aug 22, 2011 9:12:32 PM
Many far right extremists are extremely confused and blinded by fear and hate and other strong emotions that block all reason from penetrating.
A study called Cultures of the Tea Party was presented to the American Sociological Association today. It breaks down the cultural attitudes of Tea Party loyalists. Through an analysis of polling data and interviews with tea partiers, it found that the four primary characteristics most associated with Americans sympathetic to the Tea Party are “Authoritarianism, ontological insecurity (fear of change), libertarianism and nativism (negative attitudes toward immigration and immigrants)– never mind that authoritarianism and libertarianism are in direct conflict. (sheesh!)
The study also found that there are many inconsistencies in their views of the Constitution. (surprise!– not)

This is a bargain then. How much has Failure-in-Chief Bush’s folly in Iraq cost us? Something like 3 Billion a month and there is still no end in sight.
President Obama got Osama bin Laden, got the Samoli terrorists holding the American hostages, and now despots everywhere are falling because of the Obama Doctrine. Thank God for competent leadership again.

$896 million would have helped a lot of people here in the U.S. Too bad the leaders in D.C. see us as expendable at best and nonexistent at worst.

What’s the USA’s mission in Libya? Personally, I don’t get it. One day Al Qaeda is our enemy and the next day they’re our ally, fighting for freedom in Libya. Isn’t eastern Libya a known hotbed of Al Qaeda terrorism and an “incubator” of Al Qaeda terrorists who went to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight our troops in years past? Yes, I believe that’s who Al Qaeda is. From what I understand, Al Qaeda and democracy don’t mix. So, why are we US taxpayers footing the bill for this? I guess one reason is we had no debate in Congress over whether it made sense to go in there in the first place.

Help al-Quaeda?

Libya’s oil goes to Europe, we get none. We must get out of Nato, bring our troops back for our defense on the Mexican border. That billion spent for Nato could be spent on the border with upgrades on technology for flight surveillance and across the border intelligence, such as (informers)catch them at the start.

The Next Dictator removal is needed for Obamma

CBS News:
“The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama’s watch. The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion. It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president. The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama’s four-year term.”

Obama is a moron.

Posted by: Fascist Hyena | Aug 22, 2011 10:52:14 PM
What is the origin of each piece of the current debt? If you chart the debt, you’ll find that 43% of it originates from the Bush era and Republican leadership. Still, it’s a problem long term. So, what do you suggest? The implementation of Hooverist/Hayekian economic policies in a sluggish economy? Taking the option of increased revenues off the table completely in direct opposition to S&P’s recommendations? And how do you feel about Republicans supporting a tax hike in direct opposition to their pledges?
Republican opposition to Obama’s proposal for a payroll tax cut extension constitutes support for a tax hike and yet nearly every Republican in Congress has signed Norquist’s and Americans for Tax Reform’s pledges not to raise taxes. Right wingers are big on pledges.
In the not-so-distant past, Norquist himself has referred to the refusal to extend temporary tax cuts as a tax hike and a violation of the pledge.
I say most Republicans are hypocrites, but maybe– maybe– not all.
For example, Henry Bloch — co-founder and chairman emeritus of the tax preparation company H&R Block and a registered Republican — agrees with Warren Buffet and says that “the wealthy have a debt to this country. They can afford to pay it and they should.” He added that the Republican push to protect tax breaks for millionaires in order to promote job creation is “baloney“.

Our troops are stretched thin. Does anyone dispute this? Why divert valuable assets to this engagement?

So, Obama’s investment in installing Sharia Law in Libya was only a Billion, I wonder at what cost it will be if he is reelected and installs it in the US?

We’ve merely traded one terrorist for a whole PACK of terrorists.
‘Improvement,’ Obama-style.
And his supporters have been blanketing the internet over the last day, gushing and sneering about Obama ‘scoring another one.’ This shows you what utterly unprincipled people they are, A) openly declaring that ALL they care about with Libya, Egypt, bin Laden, etc is how much it helps Obama politically and B) supporting such things via tactics that they openly disdain under any other circumstance.
But whoops…it appears this thing in Libya is already making fools out of them.
It’s fast becoming a cluster-you-know-what, for both Libya and Obama.

Our cost in Libya is less than one/half of what every single day in Iraq and Afghanistan costs us and we have been involved in Libya for 6 months.

When the ‘no fly zone’ was implemented over Libya six months ago, our President involved the US without prior notification to Congress as required by law. His excuse was we were only going to be involved for a few days until NATO took command of the operation. At the end of 90 days he refused to report our involvement to Congress and did not obtain Congressional authority to continue military action as required by law. His excuse then was ‘we were not involved in hostilities’ so the law didn’t apply. How in the world have we managed to spend a Billion Dollars on a military activity that we supposedly are not involved in? Surely our TV Star president didn’t lie to the American People!

Iraq and afghanistan cost 177 million per day. How is $896 million less than half of 177 million? More Obama math LEE?

And they are complaining about military pensions. They bomb Libya short fuel prices then their buddies make allot of money.

Why would a Nobel Peace Prize laureate countenance a (soon-to-be) billion dollar military intervention in Libya? To maintain jobs in America? Those tomahawks have to be replaced. Those MREs have to be put together. If he didn’t know it – or fully appreciate it – before he was elected, BHO would have been informed shortly thereafter that military intervention abroad maintains good-paying jobs back home in the USA.

he did it with congress’s open arms. did he susspend habeus corpeus? not one American boot on the ground lost here. not so with a & a. tsk tsk

Oh and for those Frizzhead oops I mean Obama fans out there!
Saddam Hussein was many times worse than Qaddafi yet you claim invading Iraq was a war crime?
Where is the outrage over this then?

How naive are some of these comments. Obama is supporting AL Qaeda and Taliban fighters who, if they ever do take power, will pose more of a threat to the US. The Muslim Brotherhood is already rising to power in Egypt. Sharia law is what the “Libyan REBELS” want to use as their NEW CONSTITUTION! We did this in Afghanistan and look how that turned out.
Democracy??? Don’t make me laugh!

Obama could have created 448 part time jobs with that money.

I love all the tea party bashing going on. The anti-American “progressives” must have received the talking points from the American communist party… errr… I mean… Democrat party. The tea party is a philosophy and not really a formally organized party. It consists of Republicans Democrats Independents and others that are sick and tired of the tax and spend culture of Washington and the ever increasing size of intrusive government.

Wait! Obama will send in more money to rebuild Libya!
Obama has already increased foreign aid by 40%!
Borrowing from China to give to foreigners is insane!

Don’t worry, as soon as the need comes, the left will focus blame on the right and our troops. They will again openly spit on our troops. My predition is as soon as a Republican takes the white house the communists left will change their tune.

Dream on. Oblather sent the US military into Lybia months ago, no way it’s only 1B. Some dweeb is passing on WH BS trying to make people think it didn’t cost that much. Not drinking kool-aid.

posted by: SFnomad….How much has Failure-in-Chief Bush’s folly in Iraq cost us? Something like 3 Billion a month and there is still no end in sight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
0′bammy is to blame for that one!
If YOU can blame Bush, then Bush can claim this billion dollar WASTE too!

I saw a comment asking where is code pink.
Good question! Where are they?
They stated their protest was for the war and not partisan.
I think that everyone knows better, especially after this.
Their new name is code hypocrite.

days not weeks huh….starting to look like years if not decades…..where can I get the cost for Obowma’s forth non war in Syria???

OMG!!!
How can a war cost nearly a trillion dollars that has only been waged since April without troops being on the ground????
Somebody is being heavily compensated or there is some massive corruption going on at our expense!
Does the buck stop with Obama? Or will he just blame others. I think we all know the answer and it is about as pathetic as it gets.
How many of his blind supporters will give him a free pass over this? I bet almost all. I also bet that those supporters will use the same tired logic of “yeah but Bush….” They are such tools.

Seems like business as usual in the U.S. No matter who holds power in Washington we are still at war. We still have troops in Germany and Japan for crying out loud!!!

BHO, Commander-in-chief, three wars; socialism. November 2012: no more BHO; no more BS!

Oh I don’t mind, just take my VA pensions and my Social Security to pay for this justified war. After all they are instituting Sharia law now in their constitution in the crap hole, men died in WWII for that country.

NATIONAL DEBT RISES BY $3 MILLION EACH MINUTE…
( insert picture of Obama eating ice cream)

Obama loves getting involved in places that have no bearing on US security …Syria wil be next. I am so glad they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize.

If the rebels win,none of this will matter. If they can’t finish the job and can’t take Tripoli Obama will look like a fool.

“U.S. Involvement in Libya Action Would Last ‘Days, Not Weeks” – Barack Obama, March 18, 2011

If the rebels win,none of this will matter. If they can’t finish the job and can’t take Tripoli Obama will look like a fool.
Posted by: Nephron | Aug 23, 2011 9:53:19 AM
I disagree. The rebels want Sharia law. Obama and the media seem to ignore this little tidbit.

“At Least …” $900m, eh?
That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. I bet it’s “At Least” twice that figure. Let’s say $2 BILLION+ … minimum. Do the math. Just what does an American Aircraft Carrier Group cost in toto? The hundreds of sorties? The munitions, the troops and sailors, the CIA and Spec Ops on the ground? The munitions?
All that wasted money on a beef that had Ø to do with the United States.
Now, if Europe wants to repay us for protecting the uninterrupted flow of oil to THEM, well wouldn’t THAT be the right thing to do?
Which means it’ll be a cold day in hell.
~(Ä)~

Maybe some of this money should be used at home to help out our economy?
Go gogle/Yahoo: DailyJobCuts
-

“U.S. Involvement in Libya Action Would Last ‘Days, Not Weeks” — Barack Obama, March 18, 2011

HHmmmm…. we just spent 1 billion dollars to liberate Al Qaeda…. EXCELLENT !!! I’ll make sure I write my next check to the IRS for DOUBLE the amount requested… BEST NEWS I HAVE HEARD ALL DAY !!!!

This whole so-called “Arab spring” is some kind of a deal with the Saudis and with Iran with “benefits” for certain “globalists”. It is a counter balance to bring Israel to its knees, and to line someone’s pockets. BHO is only an untrained “puppet” in their hands. The Executive branch serves their masters.

The figures cited in this article sound way low. I think you need to add a few zeros to each.

Oh that Obama…spending millions to promote democracy around the world…ummm…now who does that remind you of dems….sheezzee……hypocrisy..

There’s no purpose to what Obama is doing in Libya. This Marxist is NOT promoting a democracy in the Middle East. He has no game plan at all, which means terrorists will fill the power vacuum when Khadaffi is gone. On second thought, maybe THAT is Obama’s game plan.

Pres Obama should be impeached for violation of the war powers act and perjury. Just saying.
Lie: This is not a war, its ‘kinetic
action’
Lie: This will take days not weeks
Lie: I’m the anti-war president
Lie: We shouldn’t be involved in nation
building
Trust the government, folks… everything is fine… nothing to see here. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of DEAD civilians across the globe at the hands of our dear leaders (Bush/Obama)
Wake up folks!
RON PAUL 2012
Veterans for RON PAUL
Law Enforcement for Ron Paul

But, of course, Obama says aren’t at war because our forces are operating under the auspices of NATO. Yeah, that BS logic also means we weren’t at war in WWII because our forces were part of the Allied Command! The media’s silence on this President’s ACTUAL illegal war (as they couldn’t stop screaming about when it was Bush) is deafening.

Answer for you Holly Mackerel: The invasion of Iraq by the United States was neither in self-defense against armed attack nor sanctioned by a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force by member states. Therefore it was a war of aggression. To contrast that with Libya, the French and the British led the charge on the NATO intervention; the Arab League voted in favor of imposing a No Fly Zone over Libya and that was the trigger that led to everything else, AND the UN voted in favor of ‘all necessary measures short of an occupation force.’

Wow, just a Billion Dollars to remove a dictator and install a new theocratic-dictatorship, Sharia-Law country for Al Qaeda to thrive in! Success!!!!

Oh Kimberly, you poor thing. Please look up how many UN resolutions Saddam violated before you dig yourself all the way to China.
Don’t let your hatred for Bush, or your love for Obama distort the real history.
I’m currious. What is your definition of “serious consequences” in the context of W saying it to Saddam? I heard it and KNEW it meant war.

$896 million!!! Gee, we are in a major recession with Obama telling us to tighten our belts and he and his cronies see this as a worthy expenditure!! A promise of one week has turned into 6 months and it still is not officially over……….Notice how there are no “bloody” photos, very few “dead people” shown by the MSM (if this had been Bush’s reign….) And WHO are these rebels? I have yet to find any in depth journalism giving us any idea who they are??? What is their education, job situation, religious affiliation, etc.?
And it seems that the U.S. had asked our “ally” (cough, cough) KSA to send weapons to the rebels. Hmmm, did the Saudi’s pay for this out of their oil money or out of the goodness of their hearts? There will be a power vacuum, much like in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is rearing its ugly head in Egypt, and they are organized enough to do the same in Libya………. Democracy, western style, cannot flourish in Muslim countries, save for Turkey, which of late has become susceptible to radical Islam. This Arab Spring could well turn into an Islamic Radical Spring.

Posted by: Kate | Aug 23, 2011 1:57:20 PM
Oh, Kate, your pity is misplaced. Save it for the tea party. They’re so very, very unpopular.
On topic, was there or was there not either an armed attack or a UN Security Council resolution supporting our war on Iraq? There was neither. It was a war of aggression. Most member governments of the United Nations Security Council made clear that after resolution 1441 there still was no authorization for the use of force.
Don’t be afraid of the words. If you supported the war, own it. I did not until we were there, and then I did. Once there, we had to finish what we started, imho I don’t hate Bush but do think he screwed up by not paying for the wars. He also started banging the drums for war- boom, boom doom– long before he warned Iraq of “serious consequences.” I knew Iraq was in Bush’s sites during the 2000 election. I was surprised by 9/11 and the insinuations that Iraq was involved, but not by the war on Iraq. I’m not sorry that Saddam Hussein was taken out — he was one of the most brutal dictators of the 20th century who committed many atrocities and crimes against humanity– but note that under Reagan we did nothing despite the fact that the specifics of the al-Anfal Campaign were no mystery to the Reagan administration. We supported the genocidal Iraqi government over the pro-Soviet theocracy of Iran.
There’s no denial that there are clear differences between the war on Iraq and our involvement with the NATO intervention in Libya. In Libya, the French and the British led the charge on the NATO intervention; the Arab League voted in favor of imposing a No Fly Zone over Libya and that was the trigger that led to everything else, AND the UN voted in favor of ‘all necessary measures short of an occupation force.’ As David Cameron noted, This will be a Libyan-led and Libyan-owned process with broad international support. Unlike the situation in Iraq, the US military footprint is small and the Libyans own the outcome– as they ought.

A Billion dollars we don’t have, for a cause that is none of our business, approved without consent from congress. An impeachable offense. Wake up America!

So Bush’s wars cost this country 2 Trillion to date, and several thosand lives……………..and all Teabaggers can do is cry impeachment because Obama gets the same results fofr 1 billion.
Its obvious Teabaggers dont understand money, they dont know the difference between a million, a billion and a trillion! To them its like 1 to 2 to 3!

Tell this to George W Bush and crooks supported his wars. $6 trillion + 5000 U.S. soldiers live + over a million innocent Iraqis live.

This is just a smal amount to pay for all the oil AND water coming in the future. Dont forget NATO Nazis are in this together and all of them will hold their hands open.

this problem belongs in no one person’s, or party’s hands. this is the result of a foreign policy that has persisted for decades in this country, regardless of who has been in office. military interventions are how this country operates and spreads its influence. for good, or for bad – mostly for bad.