Cost of Libya operation reached $100 million on day one

With US and coalition forces bombarding Libya leader Muammar Gaddafi’s forces from the sea and air, the cost for the first day alone of the operation was well over $100 million (€70.3m) with the total price tag expected to grow much higher the longer the strikes continue, analysts said.

Operation Odyssey Dawn appears to be focused on creating a limited no-fly zone mostly targeting Tripoli and other areas along the coast, which will require a wide range of military assets.

With allies expected to shoulder some of the bill, the initial stages of taking out Libya’s air defences could ultimately cost US-led coalition forces between $400m and $800m, according to a report released by the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

Maintaining a coastal no-fly-zone after those first strikes would cost in the range of $30m to $100m per week — not pocket change by any means, but far less than the $100m to $300m estimated weekly cost for patrolling the skies above the entire 680,000-square-mile country.

These unanticipated costs come at a time when the Pentagon is putting pressure on Capitol Hill to pass a fiscal 2011 defence budget. Continuing to operate under a stopgap continuing resolution through September, senior defence officials argue, would amount to a $23 billion cut to the military’s request for the current fiscal year, which began on October 1. The Pentagon wants $708.3bn for this year, including $159.3bn for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still, the Pentagon has the money in its budget to cover unexpected contingencies and can also use fourth-quarter dollars to cover the costs of operations now. “They’re very used to doing this operation where they borrow from Peter to pay Paul,” said Gordon Adams, the White House Office of Management and Budget’s associate director for national security during the Clinton administration.

Indeed, former Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim estimated that the Defence Department would only need to send a request for supplemental funding to Capitol Hill if the US military’s share of operations expenses for Libya topped $1bn.

Such a request would likely be met with mixed reactions in a Congress focused on deficit reduction. And, while many key lawmakers have been agitating for action in Libya, others have been more reluctant and have urged the Obama administration send them a declaration of war.

Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Richard Lugar says Congress should have had the opportunity to weigh in on what he said will be “a very expensive operation.”

“It’s a strange time in which almost all of our congressional days are spent talking about budget, deficits, outrageous problems,” Lugar said. “And yet [at the] same time, all of this passes.”

For the US military, the highest costs come in the form of pricey munitions, fuel for aircraft and combat pay for deployed troops — all factors that will pile up each day US forces remain at the helm of the operation.

On the first day of strikes alone, US-led forces launched from ships stationed off the Libyan coast 112 long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, which cost in the range of $1m to $1.5m apiece. That is $112m to $168m for the first day’s strike in missiles alone. The military will eventually refill its stockpile though those costs could be pushed off for months or more.

Pentagon budget watchers said the deployment of guided missile destroyers and submarines would not put a major dent in the Pentagon’s accounts because the ships were already deployed to the region. But the US military on Sunday tapped its B-2 bombers, and F-15 and F-16 fighter jets to strike a number of targets in and around Tripoli, which will undoubtedly force an immediate uptick in the military’s operations and maintenance expenditures.

On the personnel front, special pay for soldiers involved in the operation will also kick in immediately — unlike the munitions costs, which the Pentagon can defer.

Ultimately, the length and scale of the operation will be key to its total costs to the US. A week-long operation involving a limited number of US troops would be manageable within the existing budget. But if the operation drags into weeks and months, the Pentagon would likely have to do some re-jigging to replenish its accounts.