What would happen if the money that went to the Iraq War went to science instead?

First up, how much did Iraq actually cost?

Found one group saying the long term price tag is 6.4 trillion. Another group said the long term cost will be 2.4 trillion.

Big issue with military spending is counting what exactly were regular military expenses and what were increased for the war. Another problem is finding what went to which war, because both Iraq & Afghanistan used similar resource pools, such as military, R&D for military tech and reserve equipment.

There was a Pentagon report showing total military operation expenditures on Iraq totalled 800 billion.

Running with that, the war went for 7 years, putting cost average at 114 billion a year.

The war started in 2003 and that year, NASA had a budget of 14.6 billion.
The National Cancer Institute had a budget of 4.7 billion.
Alzheimer’s in 2003 was about 700 million.

Lets just say the goal was hypothetically to put 114 billion dollars into cancer with NCI.

NCI would have had a 2,425% increase to their budget.

Crazy thing is this.

The National Cancer Institute in 2020 had a budget of 6.5 billion dollars.

The 4.7 billion dollars the government spent on cancer research would be 6.9 billion dollars today.

Adjusted for inflation, cancer is down 400 million in spending in federal research spending.

Comparing that, the military budget was 440 billion in 2003.
651 billion today

The current budget… 703 billion dollars in 2021.

In the 18 years since 2003, we ended the two wars we were in, but spend over 50 billion dollars more on the military adjusted for inflation.

I’m for a strong military, but this seems reckless that Iraq got so much money and the military continues to grow, but NASA, Alzheimer’s and cancer are all getting less money adjusted for inflation now over since 2003.

Which Iraq, 4,400 soldiers died, over half the country calls it a mistake and it likely made the US a greater terror risk, now over before.

I can’t not feel that if 800 billion went to scientific investment, a few lives would actually be saved.

Something to think about.