BY MIKE CETERA
This week, as the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War approached, Vice President Dick Cheney said the U.S. invasion has been a "successful endeavor."
"'If you look back on those five years it has been a difficult, challenging but nonetheless successful endeavour ... and it has been well worth the effort,' he told a news conference in Baghdad after meeting Iraqi leaders."
As in every conflict, some agree, some disagree, including a group of protesters who on Wednesday night marched on downtown Aurora.
Rather than ask the question that has divided many of us -- Do you support the war? -- I'm more curious to know at what cost do you support the war both in terms of lives lost and money spent?
This month's Vanity Fair has an excerpt from a new book that claims the ultimate cost could exceed $3 trillion.
From The Three Trillion Dollar War by Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes:
The president and his advisers wanted a quick and inexpensive conflict. Instead, the Iraq war is costing more than anyone could have imagined. The only war in our history which cost more is the Second World War, when we had armed forces of 16.3 million fighting for four years at a total cost (adjusted for inflation) of about $5 trillion. Assuming we stay in Iraq another 24 months, the direct military costs alone, calculated in comparable dollars, are likely to be at least 50 percent higher than those of the Vietnam War, twice those of the Korean War, and four times those of World War I.
The chronic underestimation of costs, verging on outright deception, has continued. In January 2007, the administration estimated that it would cost $5.6 billion to deploy an additional 21,500 troops for the proposed "surge" in troop levels. But this estimate referred to the cost of deploying the combat troops alone, and for only four months. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the surge would also require deployment of at least 15,000 combat-support troops, a mobilization which would raise the cost to at least $11 billion (also for four months), reaching $27 to $49 billion if the surge continued for 12 to 24 months. Even this expanded estimate did not take into account the long-term health and disability costs for the extra veterans, or the cost of replacing the equipment that these additional troops would use.Most Americans have yet to feel any of the costs of the Iraq war. The price in blood has been paid by members of the volunteer military. The price in treasure has been financed entirely by borrowing.
Given that possible pricetag, is the war worth it?
Mike, no one is divided on this issue...
http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
The public is quite clearly anti-this-war. And has been for some time. It's one big reason Bill Foster won his election.
I've just started this book...so can't say what I think about it yet. But to you question, is the war worth it? No.
Interesting editorial characterization of the vigil last night
I happened to casually stroll to the event, others sauntered or walked briskly, some even walked reverently. I saw noone 'marching on' downtown Aurora however. Folks came either by solitary or in small groups of three-four.
The event was respectful, reverent and resolute. A solemn gathering of area citizens, elected officials and others who decided to come withness and express their views on the fifth anniversary of this war.
We ended gathered on a circle, reciting the Pledge of Alligence before ending the official ceremony, speaking or gathering amongst outselves in small groups before folks dispersing.
If you have an enterprise operating that is costing someone else a huge amount of money, and that money that is coming from someone else is flowing back into your own paocket or the pockets of those near and dear to you, why would you end the enterprise?
During any other war we have ever been involved in, the people erecting communications bases and showers and electrical generating plants and driving the supply trucks and making the food were military personnel. When we have more American civilians than soldiers in a war zone, there is a very strange imbalance operating. The American business model has shifted to embrace the concept of outsourcing, partly because it gives owners the ability to operate in more than one field and feed from those disparate troughs. This isn't just about war profiteering in the old sense of making money off of building the weapons of war, it's now about being involved in the theater of operations in a manner that has never been seen before.
The cost of this war is not going to be a deterrent to the people who can make a decision to shut it down. One man's cost is another man's profit, and if you follow the profits I believe it demonstrates the point. It isn't like the money being spent is somehow flowing from the U.S and into the coffers of Iraqis and Kurds. It's all coming right back to well connected Americans.
Mike,
Thanks for posting this information about the cost of war! Stiglitz is a well known Harvard economist and a former economic advisor to the President--a very credible estimate.
The war NEVER made sense economically. The "peace dividend" of 9/11 that was goodwill towards us AND the budget surplus that Bush inherited from Clinton BOTH have been squandered.
We now face recession in large part due to upside down budget priorities that made Dick Cheney and others rich, in an era of corruption perhaps never before seen!, while working class soldiers from Aurora get killed and Vets get some of the worst healthcare ever, some are homeless and the mental illness rate and suicide rate are astronomical.
We have all paid thousands of dollars for killing mostly civilians,the deaths of our own soldiers and bankrupting Illinois and the entire country.
The war at its outset cost too much - and still does.
The War in Iraq has been a disaster morally, economically and diplomatically. We still do not know the real reasons the Bush administration took us into this war. Their stated reason have all turned out to be bogus. But it may still turn out to be "successful" for the multinational oil companies. If the US government is successful in persuading the Iraqi government to sign on to the proposed oil law, it will pave the way for the big oil companies to reap enormous profits from Iraqi oil for decades to come. And that may be the real cause our beloved soldiers have died for.
PNAC played a serious role, prior to and during Gulf War 2, as well as framing the arguments that oil concessions would 'fund the war'.
Source: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1535.html
This also seems noteworthy (same article cited above):
See also:
Project for the New American Century
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
The little noticed cost of war is human carnage--both Iraqis and American--the "little people" whose lives have been disrupted by bombs, bullets and mayhem. In the rubble will be more human suffering--poverty, physical and mental health problems, and devastated families. Oh yes, and homelessness.
Will this country address the need for sufficient resources to rebuild lives or will we be quick to blame the victims of this destruction for not being self-sufficient? If I were a betting person I would place my bet....
When reading all of the above what comes to mind to me is the amnesty that certain ones in this government want to give to the illegal immigrants. Just makes me cringe!
Did anyone see Fairenheit 411? It says it all why Bush has done what he has done. Even his own father told him not to do it.