September 3rd / 5th
"Iraq War Has Cost Us Dearly"
President Obama is finally making good on his promise to withdraw American
troops from Iraq, but there is little cause for celebration. First,
because our military personnel should have been withdrawn seven years ago at the
moment George Bush knew his invasion was based on faulty information.
Second, because we're still leaving over 50,000 troops behind. Of course, Mr.
Obama didn't get us into Iraq, but he should have brought our troops home
immediately upon taking office. Instead, casualties continued to mount under
his administration. To date, we have lost 4,415 soldiers and another 31,897
have been seriously wounded.
And then there are the financial losses sustained. As of this month, we
have spent over one trillion dollars to invade and occupy Iraq. But that's
only part of the story. According to data compiled by both ABC and CBS news,
here's what's been lost or unaccounted for since the invasion in March of
2003:
$ 90 Billion dollars in funding is missing; Another $549 million dollars
in spare parts shipped to contractors is gone; 190,000 guns have
disappeared including AK 47 rifles; $ 1 billion dollars worth of equipment is
unaccounted for, including rocket propelled grenades; and, there have been $1.4
billion dollars in overcharges by Halliburton.
And what have we accomplished for the Iraqi people who we claimed to be
helping? For starters, according to independent sources such as the Brookings
Institute, over a half million innocent men, women, and children have died
as a result of our invasion. Another 2.5 million Iraqis have been
displaced, and those who have homes only have electricity part of the day.
Meanwhile, 28% of Iraqi children are malnourished. Prior to our invasion there were
34,000 physicians in Iraq. Since the war started, that number has dwindled
to just 12,000. It's no wonder that 90% of Iraqis say they were better off
under Saddam Hussein (source: Iraq Center for Research and Strategic
Studies).
Yes, Saddam was a dictator, and one of his sons was a menace. But there
was always running water, sewer, and electricity for his people, and not a
trace of al Qaeda terrorist activity under his regime. Never the less, we got rid
of him in order to save face from a botched invasion, and we still haven't
captured the man who masterminded the 9/11 attacks. We did, however, manage
to catch Bin laden's personal chef last week, so I guess that's
something.
Again, Obama isn't to blame for the invasion, but he has continually asked
for more funding to keep the war going. This year, for example, he is
spending $160 billion of our tax dollars in Iraq, and next year he will spend
another $159 billion. Maybe those big numbers don't mean anything to those
of us in the Triad, but they should. The non partisan National Priorities
Project has calculated what every state and locality will be paying for the
Iraq war in fiscal year 2011, as well as what that money could have been
used for.
Next year, Guilford county taxpayers' share of war funding will be $79
million dollars, while folks in Forsyth will cough up $56 million. That
translates to nearly 2,700 police officers or sheriff's deputies those counties
could employ for one full year. Or, we could spend the money to hire over
3,000 firefighters, or over 2,500 elementary school teachers.
And speaking of jobs we could create with all that Iraq money, it is
ironic that politicians like Richard Burr keep voting to fund an unwinnable,
unethical war, but voted against extending unemployment benefits to the people
whose taxes have supported that war.
We as Americans should be ashamed at what politicians of both parties have
done to (and in) Iraq, and now we are repeating the same mistake in
Afghanistan. We must stop exporting soldiers, and stop trying to police the
world. The cost is just too high, and all we have to show for it, is the capture
of a terrorist leader's cook. I don't know if Bin Laden's food is less
tasteful now, but I'm finding our continued involvement in Iraq hard to
swallow.
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