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Congressional Budget Offive [CBO] Reports

• Letter to the Honorable Robert Byrd regarding the U.S. military's ability to sustain an occupation in Iraq [2.75 MB PDF] September 2003-- "Over the near term—that is, about the next 12 months—the Department of Defense plans to deploy a substantial fraction of its ground forces for occupation duty in Iraq. Over longer periods, however, the need to maintain training and readiness levels, limit family separation and involuntary mobilization, and retain high-quality personnel would most likely constrain the U.S. occupation force to be smaller than it is today (more than 180,000 U.S. military personnel in and around Iraq). Accounting for those needs, CBO’s analysis derives “steady-state” levels of forces that could be assigned to occupation duty and maintained indefinitely."
• Estimated Costs of a Potential Conflict with Iraq September 2002 -- "In response to your request of September 20, 2002, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the cost of activities related to possible military operations in Iraq. Estimates of the total cost of a military conflict with Iraq and such a conflict's aftermath are highly uncertain. They depend on many factors that are unknown at this time, including the size of the actual force that is deployed, the strategy to be used, the duration of the conflict, the number of casualties, the equipment lost, and the need for reconstruction of Iraq's infrastructure. Of the many options being discussed for force structures, CBO examined two representative examples that vary in their emphasis on ground or air forces. Under the assumptions of those examples, CBO estimated that the incremental costs of deploying a force to the Persian Gulf (the costs that would be incurred above those budgeted for routine operations) would be between $9 billion and $13 billion. Prosecuting a war would cost between $6 billion and $9 billion a month--although CBO cannot estimate how long such a war is likely to last. After hostilities end, the costs to return U.S. forces to their home bases would range between $5 billion and $7 billion. Further, the incremental cost of an occupation following combat operations could vary from about $1 billion to $4 billion a month. " [PDF Version 72 Kb]

• Transforming the Navy's Surface Combatant Force May 2003 -- This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study looks at the composition, missions, and modernization programs of the Navy's surface combatant force as well as alternatives to the Navy's current approach to the force.