Reply With Quote
You lost me at the "To be fair" part.
Stupidity or lying, still haven't quit figured out which.
Too stupid to know what they were getting into and how much it might cost, or they knew and lied through their teeth about it. More evidence for the latter than the former.
-------------------------------
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said.
The war has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Ins ute for International Studies at Brown University.
When security forces, insurgents, journalists and humanitarian workers were included, the war's death toll rose to an estimated 176,000 to 189,000, the study said.
The report, the work of about 30 academics and experts, was published in advance of the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq on March 19, 2003.
It was also an update of a 2011 report the Watson Ins ute produced ahead of the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks that assessed the cost in dollars and lives from the resulting wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.
The 2011 study said the combined cost of the wars was at least $3.7 trillion, based on actual expenditures from the U.S. Treasury and future commitments, such as the medical and disability claims of U.S. war veterans.
That estimate climbed to nearly $4 trillion in the update.
The estimated death toll from the three wars, previously at 224,000 to 258,000, increased to a range of 272,000 to 329,000 two years later.
Excluded were indirect deaths caused by the mass exodus of doctors and a devastated infrastructure, for example, while the costs left out trillions of dollars in interest the United States could pay over the next 40 years.
The interest on expenses for the Iraq war could amount to about $4 trillion during that period, the report said.
The report also examined the burden on U.S. veterans and their families, showing a deep social cost as well as an increase in spending on veterans. The 2011 study found U.S. medical and disability claims for veterans after a decade of war totaled $33 billion. Two years later, that number had risen to $134.7 billion.
FEW GAINS
The report concluded the United States gained little from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it. The war reinvigorated radical Islamist militants in the region, set back women's rights, and weakened an already precarious healthcare system, the report said. Meanwhile, the $212 billion reconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that money spent on security or lost to waste and fraud, it said.
Former President George W. Bush's administration cited its belief that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's government held weapons of mass destruction to justify the decision to go to war. U.S. and allied forces later found that such stockpiles did not exist.
Supporters of the war argued that intelligence available at the time concluded Iraq held the banned weapons and noted that even some countries that opposed the invasion agreed with the assessment.
"Action needed to be taken," said Steven Bucci, the military assistant to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the run-up to the war and today a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based think-tank.
Bucci, who was unconnected to the Watson study, agreed with its observation that the forecasts for the cost and duration of the war proved to be a tiny fraction of the real costs.
"If we had had the foresight to see how long it would last and even if it would have cost half the lives, we would not have gone in," Bucci said. "Just the time alone would have been enough to stop us. Everyone thought it would be short." [That is what they told us. Those of us who knew better were ignored-RG]
Bucci said the toppling of Saddam and the results of an unforeseen conflict between U.S.-led forces and al Qaeda militants drawn to Iraq were positive outcomes of the war.
"It was really in Iraq that 'al Qaeda central' died," Bucci said. "They got waxed."
(Editing by Paul Simao)
http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-war-costs...144627599.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To be fair, no few Democrats went along with this collossal mistake, but it was the Republican administration that did this, and it was a large number of rank and file Republicans that acted as cool-aid drinking cheerleaders for it.
I cannot forgive the GOP for this. Never, ever.
You lost me at the "To be fair" part.
Not many democrats in the Bush administration. They had some pretty strict ideological litmus tests, if you recall.
Absolutely. Also, irrelevant to your OP.
Quick question. Would this have happened sans 9/11?
You beat boutons to it
congrats
I disagree.
What political party held the White house in 2003?
Likely not.
Thank you.
Now, deal with it.
The next time I hear some Republican drone on about government spending, this becomes a rather big albatross around the neck of the GOP.
"But we spend too much on en lements ...." "Six trillion"
"The governement spends..... " "Six trillion"
I have stopped viewing the GOP as the party of fiscal responsibility.
I see no honest attempts to reclaim that mantle. Do you?
Why would democrats go along with "this collossal mistake"?
So, is it 3.7 trillion? 4.4 trillion? or 6 trillion?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...75S25320110629
Your point is...?
Respectfully:
If you are trying to make a point, you should add some commentary.
somewhere in that range, most likely. was it worth the blood and treasure?
I don't think so
(sighs)
The UK article actually misquoted the reuters article, not that you noticed.
The UK article said that the cost could run "as high as" $3.7T, but that referenced a study in 2011, that actually said the cost would be "AT LEAST"... $3.7T
Given this study is more in depth than the Brown study in 2011, with more data and costs considered, the answer to your questions is:
$6,000,000,000,000+
Same as it was before.
Hillary and Biden voted for it -- as did numerous other innocent democrats.
Already acknowleged.
Further:
Some democrats would have gone along with it, almost no matter what.
Now, since you brought it up, I get to ask a fair question that I know you either cannot, nor will you even try to, answer:
How many Democrats who voted for the Iraq war did so because the Republican administration lied to them about it?
What lies were told to the innocent Democrats?
wait for it...wait for it...
FWIW:
House of representives voting yes as %, by party:
96% --GOP
39% --Democratic
Senate:
95%--GOP
72%--Democratic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
One can assume that fewer people of both parties would have voted for it, had they not been lied to.
That still leaves the repsonsiblity with the Republican administration that pushed for the war, doesn't it?
Six trillion.
i don't think they were innocent, just naive.
i knew they were lying when i watched powell's address to the un.
when did you find out?
Bush used our immense patriotism at the time to throw us at Iraq, for no good reason. The republicans however kept with the "you hate america" when most people said we should get the out.
Defense Secretary Cheney on why they didn't finish Saddam... i.e. it would have cost too much.
Not quite what he was saying 10 years later.. was it?
Even in 2004, he couldn't be honest about the costs...
Sorry. You got lied to.
I would guess you believed it all, without bothering to critically examine the claims.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
