Obama's Secret Troop Deployments Cost Taxpayers

Where in the world is the U.S. military? The better question might be, "Where isn't it?"

Though many Americans don't realize it, our government maintains and expansive -- and expensive -- military presence worldwide. There are over 150,000 U.S. troops stationed outside our borders on more than 800 bases in some 70 countries.

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Shockingly, that huge troop total doesn't count our presence in key countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and other theaters of the war on terror. And this is where it gets tricky, as the White House and the Pentagon have been notoriously secretive and Orwellian about just how many American soldiers are on the ground in these areas -- as well as exactly what they're doing there.

Take Iraq, for example. In October, a Pentagon representative said that U.S. troops "are not in a combat role in Iraq'' -- but the exact same week, Col. Steve Warren, a military spokesman actually located in Baghdad, said the exact opposite. "We're in combat," he told reporters, "That's why we all carry guns. That's why we all get combat patches when we leave here. That's why we all receive imminent danger pay."

Also that week, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest studiously avoided the "combat" label that Warren employed, conceding only that what American troops are doing in Iraq "certainly look[s] a lot like combat." Earnest's language is no doubt dictated by President Obama's repeated and unequivocal promises that, "We will not be sending U.S. troops back into combat in Iraq." Obama has clearly done exactly that, though his rhetoric -- a last lingering vestige of the more restrained foreign policy he promised before taking office -- dishonestly suggests otherwise.

This doublespeak and confusion has only continued in the months since. Officially (as of the end of March) there are just 3,800 American forces on the ground in Iraq. Yet clues abound which suggest this is a significant undercounting.

For example, there are at least 12 U.S. generals in the country, a total the Daily Beast notes is "stunningly high" for a conflict "that, if you believe the White House talking points, doesn't involve American troops in combat." Plus, the Daily Beast reports, the count of generals may be even higher if we take "into account the flag officers running the U.S. air war, the admirals helping wage the war from the sea, or their superiors back at the Pentagon."

All told, as many as 21 generals may be deployed in the fight against the Islamic State group. That's an awful lot of leadership for 3,800 troops. Normally, a force that size would be led by a single colonel.

Further reporting from the Daily Beast has demonstrated that the actual current total of U.S. troops in Iraq is more like 6,000: The Obama administration is using special classifications for some personnel to avoid counting them as permanent ground troops.

Either way, we can expect those 21 generals to have substantially more Americans under their command in Iraq soon, because Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is pushing the president to approve a new surge. If he is successful, recent history and inertia alike suggest a long-term return to troop levels reminiscent of the earlier years of Obama's presidency could well be possible -- and Americans at home may not be given an honest accounting of what such a commitment entails and costs.

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We do know it will cost a lot. Estimates from 2014 show it costs as much as $2.1 million to maintain a single American soldier in Afghanistan for just one year. The price at that point was on an upward trend, and though it no doubt varies considerably by country and circumstance, with numbers like that the cost of a new surge in Iraq (not to mention Eastern Europe) will add up quickly.

But beyond the expense to taxpayers, secretive troop build-ups do a disservice to public debate and the rule of law, making it difficult at best for Americans to understand what our government is doing -- and what it should do next in pursuit of a prudent, effective foreign policy. Deprived of knowledge of what is happening now, we can't hold our representatives properly accountable to our interests.

In "bypassing public debate, we lose the ability to discuss important and necessary questions surrounding military intervention," argues international security expert Emma Ashford. "Some are practical questions, such as the strain of consistent deployments on America's Special Operations Forces and their families. Others are strategic, like the question of whether frequent, limited interventions of this type actually have the potential to achieve our long-term goals."

Without this information -- even data as basic as a truthful count of how many troops we have deployed worldwide -- Americans are forced to simply trust that our government is making wise foreign policy decisions. Yet if the last decade and a half are any guide, that is a dubious trust indeed.

Bonnie Kristian is a fellow at the American Security Initiative Foundation.