Costs of Canadian Afghan Mission

This is over a year old so the expenditure by now will be far greater. However, the amount is quite substantial. It would be good if some economist could list some of the opportunity costs of the mission listing some of the things that could have been achieved by spending that amount of money on other projects.

Cost of Afghan mission
$2B and rising: Tally includes only a fraction of new costs in Kandahar; Forces could be there for years

David Pugliese
The Ottawa Citizen


Friday, March 03, 2006



CREDIT: Chris Mikula, The Ottawa Citizen
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his son, Ben, were at the Canadian Forces Appreciation Night at the Ottawa Senators game last night, along with about 1,500 Canadian Forces staff and their families.

Canadian taxpayers have spent more than $2 billion on the country's ongoing military mission to Afghanistan, with the cost of the latest deployment to Kandahar largely still to come.

So far, the Canadian Forces commitment to Afghanistan, which started ramping up in late 2001, has cost $1.7 billion, according to figures provided by the Department of National Defence. But that overall figure, which represents what the department calls "incremental costs," does not include the wages of military personnel or wear and tear on aging equipment used overseas.

It also doesn't include the purchase of major new equipment for the mission. So far the Canadian Forces has spent or set aside another $330 million for emergency equipment purchases for Afghanistan, ranging from new armoured vehicles to surveillance drones.

In addition, Afghanistan has also become Canada's single largest recipient of bilateral aid. According to figures provided by the Canadian International Development Agency, Canada will have provided $616 million in aid to Afghanistan by 2009. In the years immediately preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., Canada had given about $10 million in annual aid to Afghanistan.

Over the last four years, Afghanistan has become the major focus of Canadian defence and foreign affairs policy. More than 7,000 military personnel have served in that country so far.

Details of the costs come as Canadian casualties mount in Afghanistan. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated his strong support for the mission yesterday, saying it is important to global security.

The $2-billion-plus pricetag, however, could only be the tip of the iceberg on the actual cost of the Afghanistan mission.

The full costs of the deployments won't be released by the Defence Department until this fall. Estimates of the cost of keeping 2,300 troops in Afghanistan over the next year are also not being released at this time.

The Foreign Affairs Department would not provide the amount it has spent on Afghanistan, but an official noted that a large number of resources and personnel are involved in the file.

Liberal Senator Colin Kenny said the Canadian public deserves to be fully informed as to what the Afghan mission is expected to ultimately cost, both financially and in the number of casualties to troops. He also questioned the effectiveness of the money being spent on aid to Afghanistan.

"You can't get figures from CIDA for the current year," said Mr. Kenny, the former chairman of the Senate defence committee.

"More than that, you can't get figures that break it out on what we're spending in terms of aid in Kandahar."

Mr. Kenny noted that most of the aid is being funnelled through United Nations organizations. "There's no way on God's green earth we'll be able to measure if those programs are worth a damn," he added.

CIDA said that its officials who deal with Afghanistan were tied up in meetings yesterday and could not immediately respond to the senator's concerns.

The $1.7 billion the Canadian Forces has spent so far includes estimates of the cost of the latest Afghan mission to Kandahar, Operation Archer, but only up until the end of the month, because the government's fiscal year ends March 31. So far that operation has cost $286 million.

Canadian troops will be operating in Kandahar until at least next February but military officials have suggested in the past that the commitment to Afghanistan will continue for years. On Tuesday, Canadian Brig.-Gen. David Fraser assumed command of the multinational brigade responsible for southern Afghanistan. The brigade includes 6,000 soldiers from Canada, Britain, the United States, the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark, Romania and Estonia.

The new equipment purchased by the military for Afghanistan could be of use in other missions. Some of it had already been on the military's wish list but not planned for acquisition until after 2010. Because of the Afghan mission, the purchase of that gear was fast-tracked.

The figures provided by the Defence Department also do not account for the wear and tear on Forces equipment.

But in the U.S., congressional budget experts have determined that the war in Iraq is using military equipment at five to 10 times the peacetime training rate. Pentagon officials have asked for billions of dollars in emergency funds to replace wornout gear.

While Canada's military effort is nowhere near that of the U.S. in Iraq, it is considerable nonetheless. For example, by last March, Canadian Hercules transport planes had flown 5,000 hours in support of Operation Athena, an earlier mission to Afghanistan.

The office of the Auditor General, the watchdog of the government purse, has never done an audit of the Afghan mission. A spokeswoman for the Auditor General's office declined to say whether there were any plans to do so.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2006








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