Iraq War... Not Frugal
A Veteran
fifty-three billion dollars) to date.
That's pretty hard to grasp. Especially on my income and probably on
yours. Let's bring that home and make it a little more understandable.
I live in Ulster County, New York. Our share of that is $372,000,000
(three hundred and seventy-two million dollars).
If you live in Los Angeles, your bill is $4,823,000,000 (four billion,
eight hundred twenty-three million). Savannah, Georgia, $144,000,000.
Little Rock, Arkansas, $339,000,000. That's how much you're putting in
so far. It keeps ticking away at two billion dollars a week. If you
live somewhere else and want to know how much it's costing your city
or county, go to costofwar.com.
You might also want to do what they suggest. Imagine what could have
been done with that much money. The schools, bridges, medical care,
playgrounds.
What did we get for our money?
The original deal - as presented to us - was to disarm Saddam Hussein
for $50 billion. If we didn't do it right away, the smoking gun would
be a mushroom cloud.
Bizarre, but true, that was actually accomplished. And for far less.
It wasn't difficult, since Saddam was already disarmed. But by massing
our troops and demanding UN resolutions, Saddam was forced to let the
inspectors in so that we got to see it for ourselves.
But the administration was set on war! We're not actually sure why.
Perhaps they aren't either. So they told us that the inspectors were
associated with the UN. They were Swiss or French or some other
foreigners, and therefore, unlike Americans, they were easily conned.
Their failure to find WMDs didn't mean there weren't any. It really
meant that Saddam was super tricky as well as super evil.
So the goal slipped from disarming Saddam to removing Saddam.
Removing Saddam was going to be a magic moment. It was going to be
like a Disney animated feature. When the ogre was slain, the entire
kingdom would break out with flowers and the flowers would dance and
sing. And welcome the Americans as liberators!
That's not all we were going to get for our investment. We were going
to get much, much more!
We would strike a blow in the war on terror! Keep (non-existent)
weapons of mass destructions out of the hands of a dictator who might
give them to terrorists. Establish a democracy in the Middle East.
Bring stability to the region and hope to other people under evil
dictators. Make Israel safer.
Most of all it would be a demonstration!
We would smite our foe like the Lord God Almighty, throwing
thunderbolts and parting the very seas, so that all who saw would
quake in fear and tremble before us. That's the colorful, theological
version, but it is, in fact, what the administration expected.
We were a beneficent power, too. We were going to rebuild Iraq. George
Bush said it was going to be "The greatest financial commitment of
it's kind since the Marshall Plan!"
Was that going to cost us more?
No. "We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own
reconstruction, and relatively soon," said the ever astute Paul
Wolfowitz, deeply knowledgeable about third world countries, war and
finance. 'What a deal,' as they used to say, throwing in a second pair
of pants and a genuine silk tie, when you bought your Bar Mitzvah suit
down on Orchard Street.
But it wasn't a Disney movie. The commander-in-chief and his crew were
wrong in their assumptions and incompetent in execution.
If they stop, they will have to admit that we got nothing for our
money. If they go forward, it's not their money. Or their bodies.
While it's not be in our interests, its in their interests to turn the
war into the Energizer Bunny, endlessly, mindlessly, going and going
and going.
One question that should be asked, but hasn't been, is where did the
money actually go?
The answer is that nobody really knows.
To give you some idea of how bad the book keeping is, the
Congressional Budget Office reported that from 2001 to 2006 we had
spent 290 billion dollars on the war in Iraq. But the Congressional
Records Office had the number at $318.5 billion dollars. A gap of 28.5
billion.
The Government Accounting Office said that because of the way the
Department of Defense handles its money, "neither DOD nor the Congress
reliably know how much the war is costing and how appropriated funds
are being used."
We don't even know how many troops are deployed to Iraq. One Defense
Department system says 260,000, another says 207,000, and the DFAS,
who does their payrolls, says 202,000. A difference of as much as
58,000 troops.
The Armed Forces have been so privatized that General Patraeus is not
guarded by soldiers, but by private contractors.
When we pass a bill for billions to 'support the troops,' we have no
way of knowing how many troops we're supporting or how much money is
supporting them. It would be at least as accurate to say it's a bill
to support Halliburton, Blackwater and the General's private security
guards.
George Bush's version of the Marshall Plan, the reconstruction, is
even worse. Paul Bremer III burned through - an estimated - forty
billion dollars. Billions were handed out in cash. People were playing
football with shrink wrapped bricks of $100 bills.
Nobody knows where the money went.
Nor has there been much reconstruction. There is less electrical
service than before the war. There are fewer functioning schools,
hospitals and medical facilities. There is no one to staff them if
they had been built, since so many of the people with skills have been
killed or driven out of the country. Water and waste treatment is so
inadequate that a cholera epidemic is appearing.
A cost-benefit analysis would say that what we have achieved is in the
minus column. That we spent forty billion dollars to get
deconstruction.
Alright, there was waste, corruption and profiteering on a grand
scale. Alright, the Iraqis didn't get anything for money, except
hundreds of murderous, petty tyrants to replace one, grand, bloody
dictator. But what did we get for our money?
We didn't get rid of the WMDs, because they weren't there.
We got rid of Saddam Hussein. He was replaced by a nominal democracy,
but an actual chaos. Murder, rape, gang violence, civil war, revenge
killings, semi-tribal war, have become the norm.
Al Qaeda not only survived, it got stronger.
The Middle East is less stable.
Israel looks more vulnerable.
Iran has been strengthened.
Instead of being a demonstration of irresistible power, the war
exposed the limits of American power.
Iraq has become the textbook on how an insurgency can defeat a major
power.
George Bush said this was a war for civilization. In the course of it,
we have rejected the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremberg Principles, and
the rule of law. We have embraced torture, failed to protect and
provide for civilians in a country under our occupation and allowed
the monuments and treasures of an ancient civilization to be looted
and destroyed. Who is it that's fighting for civilization?
Has anyone benefited from this war? Yes.
Before the war Halliburton was facing bankruptcy. Now they're doing
very well, along with a host of other military contractors.
The really big winners are Iran and Al Qaeda.
Osama bin Laden was a murderous madman, an outlaw hiding the caves of
Tora Bora. Now Al Qaeda has a new base in Iraq and controls at least
one province. His goal was to get America into a war like the one the
Soviets fought, and lost, in Afghanistan. Which he did. He also wanted
an actual world wide conflict between Islam and the West. He got that
too.
Iran wanted Saddam Hussein gone. To have Shia'a groups, with ties to
Iran, come to power afterward. For America to be weakened and to have
its forces tied down so they could pursue their nuclear ambitions.
They got all that.
As I wrote this, I heard a story on the radio about a kid from
Saugerties - which is the next little town over from here - who got
both legs blown off in Iraq. I didn't catch his name. I'm sorry. He's
one of the 25,830 that the DOD reported as officially wounded. Along
with 3500 US dead. The 650,000 Iraqi dead. No one counts their
wounded. Millions driven into exile.
Those are some of the costs. Now you know who benefited.
Larry Beinhart
--
when you believe the only tool you have is a hammer.
All problems look like nails.
Bill
> The War in Iraq has cost about $453,000,000,000 (four hundred and
> fifty-three billion dollars) to date.
>
The majority of people in America agree we should leave and this is what the
majority of the people in Iraq also want.
Also - Everyone I talk to feels we should spend our tax dollars on America
and not on foreign countries. (Stop sending billions to other countries.)
Unfortunately the people in Washington don't care what the people think. I
guess we don't give them any money so we are low on the totem pole....
Ken Knecht
news:5lsm5hF...@mid.individual.net:
> Unfortunately the people in Washington don't care what the people
> think. I guess we don't give them any money so we are low on the totem
> pole....
>
Just their salaries.
--
Every silver lining has a cloud.
Dennis
wrote:
What I don't get is, it's coming up on a year since the new wave of
politicians swept congress on the platform of ending the war, but
nothing has changed. They are still writing the administration blank
checks. What's the deal?
Dennis (evil)
--
What government gives, it must first take away.
Gary Heston
Dennis <dg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 08:00:25 -0700, "Bill" <bill19...@yahoo.com>
>wrote:
>>Unfortunately the people in Washington don't care what the people think. I
>>guess we don't give them any money so we are low on the totem pole....
>What I don't get is, it's coming up on a year since the new wave of
>politicians swept congress on the platform of ending the war, but
>nothing has changed. They are still writing the administration blank
>checks. What's the deal?
That the difference between the two main parties is measured in the small
fractions of a percent.
Gary
--
Gary Heston ghe...@hiwaay.net http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
Yoko Onos' former driver tried to extort $2M from her, threating to
"release embarassing recordings...". What, he has a copy of her album?
Steve
>>What I don't get is, it's coming up on a year since the new wave of
>>politicians swept congress on the platform of ending the war, but
>>nothing has changed. They are still writing the administration blank
>>checks. What's the deal?
>
>That the difference between the two main parties is measured in the small
>fractions of a percent.
Yup, and getting smaller all the time...
--
Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
...P.J. O'Rourke
Nicik Name
"Dennis" <dg...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:u3ijf3h65sgb4k6in...@4ax.com...
Saudia Arabia and Big Oil want 112 billion barrels of oil under Iraq to STAY
THERE.